Netflix Loses Bid to Dismiss Defamation Claim in ‘Baby Reindeer’ Lawsuit

A federal courtroom has superior the important thing defamation declare in a lawsuit in opposition to Netflix over its portrayal of a lady depicted as a stalker in Richard Gadd‘s Child Reindeer, whereas dismissing different allegations.

U.S. District Choose R. Gary Klausner on Friday discovered that Netflix might’ve defamed Fiona Harvey, the inspiration behind Jessica Gunning’s Martha depicted as a twice-convicted stalker sentenced to 5 years in jail for sexual assault, by stating that the collection was “based on a true story.” Netflix could have “insisted on adding” the disclaimer regardless of Gadd’s issues, the courtroom mentioned.

“This suggests a reckless disregard of whether the statements in the series were false,” the order said.

Child Reindeer follows Gadd’s Donny Dunn, a struggling comic who encounters Martha on the bar the place he works. Martha is then revealed to be a harmful, serial stalker. Over the course of a number of years, she’s depicted as sending him greater than 41,000 emails, 744 tweets, 100 pages of letters and 350 hours of voicemails.

In June, Harvey introduced a lawsuit in California federal courtroom in opposition to Netflix looking for at the very least $170 million, together with the corporate’s income from the collection.

Netflix moved to dismiss the lawsuit beneath California’s anti-SLAPP legislation, which permits for the early dismissal of lawsuits supposed to chill free speech. The courtroom, nonetheless, discovered that Harvey has a “probability of prevailing” on allegations over defamation.

Claims for negligence, proper of publicity and punitive damages had been dismissed, whereas a declare for intentional infliction of emotional misery was allowed to proceed.

The collection depicts Martha as a convicted felony who spent 5 years in jail for stalking Gadd and one other girl. She’s additionally proven to stalk a policeman and sexually assault Gadd. Harvey, whose actual identify wasn’t used in the collection, has maintained that she’s by no means been convicted of any crime.

The lawsuit alleged Netflix “did literally nothing” to affirm statements in the collection, which is represented as a real story, regarding Harvey.