UPDATE: Ava DuVernay & Netflix Win ‘When They See Us’ Defamation Lawsuit Filed By Linda Fairstein
Less than a week after Netflix, director Ava DuVernay, and writer Attica Locke of When They See Us were sued by the ex-prosecutor depicted in the film — but today, a federal judge throughout the lawsuit and dismissed the case.
When They See Us is four-parter about the five young men falsely accused of brutally raping and beating a Central Park female jogger in 1989, and the charges was led by the ex-prosecutor Linda Fairstein.
via Deadline:
“Because the First Amendment protects non-factual assertions (and because neither defendants Ava DuVernay nor Array Alliance Inc. has sufficient minimum contacts with the State of Illinois to justify haling them into court here), Reid’s complaint is dismissed,” wrote U.S. District Court Judge Manish Shah on Monday (read the order here). This ends an action started back in October by John E. Reid & Associates over their trademark controversial interrogation technique.
“If the technique is as widely used as Reid says it is, the effect of the criticism has been felt well beyond Illinois’s borders,” the Northern District of Illinois Eastern Division official noted. “To find that DuVernay should be haled into court here because she criticized a process sold by a company that happens to be located in Illinois would be to offend traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.”
To further that point, in a corresponding document, the court declared that the judgment in the Midwest-based civil case is “in favor of defendants Netflix, Inc., Ava DuVernay, and Array Alliance, Inc., and against plaintiff John E. Reid and Associates, Inc.”
Netflix response to the judgement,“we’re pleased the court has found in our favor.”
Once again, justice has been served.
