Disney, CAA, and Miramax lost a bid to toss out a lawsuit by Julia Ormond, who alleged the companies failed to protect her from now-incarcerated Harvey Weinstein.
“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’s ruling stated, per The Los Angeles Times. At the time of the alleged assault, Disney owned Miramax.
The actress, who rose to fame with 1994’s Legends of the Fall, which also featured Fall Brad Pitt, and 1995’s First Knight, in which she starred alongside Richard Gere and Sean Connery, filed a lawsuit in October last year claiming the disgraced movie mogul forced her to perform oral sex on him in December 1995. Ormond alleged that after she told her CAA agents — Bryan Lourd and Kevin Huvane — what had happened, they discouraged her from speaking out and did not help her. Although Lourd and Huvane were cited in the complaint, they were not named as defendants.
In a statement at the time, Ormond said that she had lived for decades with “the painful memories” of her experiences with Harvey Weinstein, and thanked those before her who had “risked speaking out.” She added that their “courage and the Adult Survivors Act” gave her a “window of opportunity and way to shed light on how powerful people and institutions like my talent agents at CAA, Miramax and Disney enabled and provided cover for Weinstein to assault me and countless others.”
In a statement to Rolling Stone, a spokesperson for CAA disagreed with the court’s ruling and said that they “continue to believe there is no legal or factual basis for Ms. Ormond’s claims against CAA.” The spokesperson also alleged that the agency “did not learn of Weinstein’s sexually assaultive behavior until it became public knowledge decades later.”
Reps for Disney, and Miramax did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment on Monday, nor did reps for Ormond or Weinstein.
In February 2020, Weinstein was found guilty of criminal sexual assault in the first degree and rape in the third degree in a separate trial. He was sentenced to 23 years in prison based on testimonies from Miriam Haley and Jessica Mann. He has maintained his innocence.
The conviction was overturned in April by the New York State Court of Appeals. In the decision, the majority of judges agreed that the judge who oversaw Weinstein’s trial, Justice James M. Burke, should not have allowed accusers whose allegations were not part of the charges provide testimony at the trial.
This article was updated on Aug. 19 at 10:42 p.m. ET to include a statement from CAA.
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