Legal News

Fierce! Bruno?s Lawyers Play Hardball in Response to Lawsuit

By Ashby Jones

Last week, after getting word that NBC Universal had already been hit with a lawsuit by a woman claiming she was injured during the filming of the forthcoming Bruno movie, we deemed actor Sacha Baron Cohen a “lawsuit generator.”

But just because Cohen inspires a fair share of suits doesn’t mean they amount to easy money plaintiffs. Ali G, Borat and Bruno may be goofballs, but Cohen’s lawyers play hardball.

Shortly after the suit was filed, Universal Pictures fired back with a statement saying, essentially, that video footage of the incident in which the plaintiff claimed to be injured shows that Cohen and others did nothing wrong. The statement, as reported by Eriq Gardner of The Hollywood Reporter, Esq., reads: “Filmed footage of the full encounter, which took place more than two years ago, clearly shows that Ms. Olson was never touched or in any way assaulted by Sacha Baron Cohen or any member of the production and suffered no injury.”

Then the legal heavies got involved. Lawyers at Smith Dehn in New York, who represent the film’s production teams as well as Cohen, sent this letter to the lawyers to the plaintiffs.

A few tidbits to note:

The letter claims that the defendants found out about the lawsuit not through service but through media reports. “Interestingly, although you have generated over 15,000 media articles regarding the complaint, you have not served it upon any of the defendants.”

The letter attacks the lawsuit on the grounds that the evidence isn’t as the plaintiff claims; that the plaintiffs had previously waived some of their legal claims; and the claims are invalidated by the statute of frauds.

The letter threatens further action if the suit is not rescinded by Monday, June 8 (no word on whether that’s happened).

Our favorite paragraphs, however, are these:

Your clients also allege that Mr. Baron Cohen used ‘vulgar and offensive language over the loud speakers of the bingo hall,’ that ‘the bingo players are predominantly elderly,’ and that they ‘felt violated.’ To the contrary, the unedited footage shows that Mr. Cohen used no such language at any time. The footage shows that most of the bingo players were relatively young (like the plaintiffs), and that Mr. Cohen offered only light-hearted comments that were met with general laughter from the audience, and even applause.

Regarding your clients’ claim that the Film producers tricked them into believing that the Film was being made for ‘Discovery Channel or PBS,’ this is another provably false assertion. It is contradicted not only by common sense (including the fact that those channels do not include programs on the subject of bingo), but also by the written consent agreements that your clients read and signed.

It’s true, and it’s sad: Memo from the Law Blog to both the Discovery Channel and PBS: More bingo programming!

Full post as published by Law Blog - WSJ.com on June 09, 2009 (boomark / email).