LOS ANGELES, Jan 10, 2019 (BSS/AFP) – A Los Angeles court on Wednesday
dismissed actress Ashley Judd’s sexual harassment lawsuit against disgraced
Hollywood producer Harvey Weinstein — but said she can move forward with
allegations he defamed her and damaged her career.
US District Judge Philip Gutierrez said the law covering sexual harassment
within a professional relationship did not apply to sexual advances
Weinstein, 66, allegedly made toward Judd in 1997 during a meeting about
potential film roles.
However, he did rule that Judd, 50, can proceed with her defamation claim
against the producer, who has been accused of sexual abuse by hundreds of
women and is facing criminal charges in New York.
Once of the first women to accuse him, Judd claims that in 1998, Weinstein
defamed her and damaged her career by telling “Lord of the Rings” director
Peter Jackson that she was a “nightmare” to work with.
Gutierrez previously said in September that the law upon which Judd’s claim
was based “has never before been applied to an employer’s sexual harassment
of a prospective employee, and the court is not convinced that the statute
was intended to cover such harassment.”
Weinstein’s lawyers in July insisted Judd had struck a “deal” with
Weinstein allowing him to touch her if she “won an Academy Award in one of
his films.”
But Judd alleged that she proposed the pact to elude Weinstein after he
invited her to his Beverly Hills hotel room.
Jackson confirmed in December 2017 that Weinstein had in the 1990s sought
to discredit actresses who later went on to accuse him of sexual misconduct.