Gayle Nix Jackson Family Sues the Sixth Floor
by Jeffrey L. Meek
Earlier this month, Gayle Nix Jackson and her father, Orville Nix Jr., sued the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza. In a letter to me from their lead attorney, Leland C. de la Garza: “The lawsuit seeks to rescind the agreement between Nix and the Sixth Floor Museum at Dealey Plaza and legally require the Sixth Floor Museum to return the copyright to the Nix film and the physical copies of the Nix film based on wrongdoings (only recently uncovered) that Plaintiffs contend in the Lawsuit were committed by the Sixth Floor Museum and Mr. (James) Silverberg during the negotiation of the agreement. The basis for the lawsuit is set out in the Petition filed in district court in Dallas. We are confident in our legal position and that the court will correct the wrong that was done to Mr. Nix by the Sixth Floor Museum and Mr. Silverberg.”
The Orville Nix Sr. film is arguably the second most valuable film taken during the November 22, 1963, assassination of President John F. Kennedy. As Nix panned his camera from the opposite side of Elm Street as Abraham Zapruder, the grassy knoll area comes into view. The original film may provide the best look researchers have at that area, long since seen as a location of a second gunman in Dealey Plaza.
Two weeks after the assassination, Nix licensed the original film to United Press International (UPI) for a term of 25 years. UPI transferred the film to the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA) during their investigation. HSCA then sent it to the Aerospace Corporation in California to be scanned and enhanced, but incorrectly recorded that the Nix film was sent to a lab in Los Alamos instead. There are no records suggesting that the Nix film was ever returned to the HSCA, or that the HSCA ever returned the film to UPI.
After Nix Sr. died, his interest in the film passed to Orville Nix Jr. In 1988, when UPI’s license was about to end, Gayle Nix Jackson asked UPI to return the film and believed it was in possession of the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA). UPI said they did not have the film; the National Archives had it. Nix Jackson learned NARA only had a copy, not the original.
For many years Nix Jackson searched for the original, and the government continues to deny possessing the film. An archivist later told Nix Jackson that the original film had been lost while in the custody of UPI. In 2015, she sued the government, but the case was dismissed in 2017.
But then on December 11, 2024, the Orville Nix Jr. v. The United States case was overturned in a Federal Claims court. Thus, the government’s attempt to dismiss the case was denied.
On February 4, 2000, Nix Jackson and her father sold the copyright on the film along with a number of physical copies to the Sixth Floor Museum. Now they have learned that their lawyer, Mr. James Silverberg, had an undisclosed conflict of interest while negotiating the Nix Film Agreement. The Museum had hired Silverberg as an attorney for itself due to his expertise in copyright law and intellectual property matters.
From the Petition, filed in Dallas on April 3, 2025: “Under established Texas law, a fiduciary relationship exists between an attorney and his client, as a matter of law. This relationship requires the most abundant good faith, perfect candor, openness and honesty, and the absence of any concealment or deception. An attorney is obligated to make full and fair disclosure of facts material to legal representation.”
The current lawsuit seeks to rescind the Nix Family Agreement and recover damages and other equitable relief of $1,000,000.
