The Los Angeles federal jury deliberated for only about 2 ½ hours before deciding that the creators of “Moana” never had access to writer and animator Buck Woodall’s outlines and script for “Bucky the Surfer Boy.

Lawyers for a New Mexico writer and animator will say at closing arguments at his federal trial in Los Angeles on Monday that his work was stolen to create the Walt Disney Co.’s 2016 hit about a questing Polynesian princess, whose sequel was among the biggest hits of last year.

Animator Buck Woodall continues to pursue a copyright trial over the sequel to the 2016 hit, though the jury's decision in this case may indicate he faces an uphill battle.

Was “Moana” based on a boy named Bucky? An attorney for a man who alleges Disney's questing Polynesian princess was stolen from his work told jurors at a federal trial Monday that a long chain of circumstantial evidence and similarities so numerous they can’t be coincidences make it clear that his story “Bucky the Surfer Boy” was the basis for the hit 2016 animated film.

A jury on Monday quickly and completely rejected a man’s claim that Disney’s “Moana” was stolen from his story of a young surfer in Hawaii.