Judge denies motions to dismiss case by actress who claims CAA, Disney enabled assault by Harvey Weinstein
A New York Supreme Court judge on Monday denied motions by talent agency CAA, Walt Disney Co. and Miramax to dismiss actress Julia Ormond’s lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein for sexual battery.
The suit, filed last October, named CAA for negligence and breach of fiduciary duty, as well as Walt Disney Co. and Miramax, accusing them of negligent supervision and retention.
“The complaint sufficiently alleges that CAA failed to protect plaintiff from Weinstein, failing to warn her of his alleged reputation while at the same time negotiating the production company agreement between the plaintiff and Miramax, and later arranging the dinner meeting between plaintiff and Weinstein,” said the court in its ruling.
Gov. Gavin Newsom has signed an extradition warrant seeking the transfer of Harvey Weinstein from custody in New York to California, where he was previously convicted on rape charges.
Disney owned Miramax at the time of the alleged assault.
“We are very pleased by the Court’s decision, which is a complete repudiation of CAA, Disney, and Miramax’s attempts to evade accountability for their failure to protect Julia Ormond from Harvey Weinstein. The case will now proceed to discovery, where, thanks to Ms. Ormond’s bravery, we will be able to expose the truth of how these powerful Hollywood companies enabled Harvey Weinstein,” said Ormond’s attorneys Meredith A. Firetog and Kevin Mintzer in a statement to The Times.
“We respectfully disagree with the Court’s ruling and continue to believe there is no legal or factual basis for Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA,” said a spokesperson for the agency in a statement. “While we have deep compassion for Ms. Ormond and are incredibly disturbed by what she says she suffered at the hands of Weinstein, CAA did not learn of Weinstein’s sexually assaultive behavior until it became public knowledge decades later. As a result, the claim that CAA should have warned Ms. Ormond about Weinstein’s criminal conduct in December 1995 defies logic.”
Representatives for Disney were not immediately available for comment.
Ormond, who starred in such films as “Legends of the Fall” and the remake of “Sabrina,” alleged that the disgraced movie mogul sexually assaulted her in December 1995 after a business dinner in New York City, where the two were to discuss a project.
She further alleged that after she informed her agents Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane, currently CAA’s co-chairmen, they did nothing to help her and instead cautioned her about speaking out.
Lourd and Huvane were not named as defendants in the suit. However, their names were cited throughout the complaint.
“The men at CAA who represented Ormond knew about Weinstein. So too did Weinstein’s employers at Miramax and Disney,” the lawsuit states. “Brazenly, none of these prominent companies warned Ormond that Weinstein had a history of assaulting women because he was too important, too powerful, and made them too much money.”
Weinstein insisted on discussing a project at the Manhattan apartment Miramax provided for the English actor, part of her two-year, first-look deal with the company, according to the complaint.
Once there, Ormond, who was “inebriated” to the point she could not put the keys in the door, says despite her protests, Weinstein “stripped naked,” forced her to give him a massage, climbed on top of her, masturbated and then forced her “to perform oral sex on him.”
A few weeks after the alleged assault, Ormond traveled to Copenhagen to work on a film and was informed that Weinstein planned to visit her.
“Horrified,” according to the suit, she called her agents at CAA, Lourd and Huvane, to “plead with them to prevent Weinstein from coming to Copenhagen.” They declined to intervene, the suit states.
Ormond filed her lawsuit under the Adult Survivors Act, that was passed in New York in 2022. It established a one-year “lookback” window for survivors of sexual assault that occurred when they were over the age of 18, regardless of when it took place.
Weinstein’s attorney Imran H. Ansari, “categorically denie[d] the allegations made against him by Julia Ormond and he is prepared to vehemently defend himself,” according to a statement after the suit was filed.
At the time of the filing, CAA called the claims baseless.
The agency said that Ormond’s legal counsel approached them in March about the allegations. The Century City-based agency then hired attorney Loretta Lynch and her law firm, Paul, Weiss. The firm’s review “found nothing to support Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA.”
Ormond’s attorneys asked CAA to pay $15 million in exchange for Ormond not making public allegations against the agency, which it rejected, CAA said.
At the Bloomberg Screentime conference last year, Lourd said: “We were falsely accused of something that we did not do and we are going to address those accusations in court in a proper forum.”
In April, a New York appellate court decided to overturn Weinstein’s rape conviction in a separate case, saying a state judge erred in allowing three women to testify at trial despite no charges being filed against the movie mogul in connection with their accusations.
Last month, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed an extradition warrant seeking the transfer of Harvey Weinstein from custody in New York to California, where he was previously convicted on rape charges.
Staff writer Wendy Lee contributed to this report
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