Cybill Suit Filed by CBS

January 25, 2001 -- The same week Cybill Shepherd was booted off her current TV show (Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus), the corpse of her former CBS sitcom is raising quite a stink.

CBS has filed a $53 million suit against Carsey-Werner Productions — the powerhouse behind That '70s Show and 3rd Rock From the Sun — claiming that the company never repaid the substantial loan it took out to fund Cybill, which was canceled in 1998.

According to The Associated Press, CBS claims that Carsey-Werner pledged to pay back the loan if Cybill was sold into syndication. But it wasn't, and the network alleges that that's because Carsey-Werner didn't bother to market the Emmy-winning Cybill to syndicators in order to escape fulfilling its promise to CBS.

"Now that the series has been off the air for more than a year," the lawsuit states, "its marketability in the second-run distribution market has diminished, and there is little hope that CBS can ever recoup its substantial deficit."

Reps for Carsey-Werner refused to comment to the AP.