Not very sexy, but a dismissal is a dismissal.
A federal judge in New York recently dismissed Blake Lively’s federal sexual harassment and retaliation claims against the production entities behind It Ends With Us -- including It Ends With Us Movie, LLC, and Wayfarer Studios.
The basis for the dismissal was not what allegedly happened on the set, but that Ms. Lively was not an “employee.”
According to Judge Lewis Liman, Ms. Lively was an independent contractor rather than an employee. That was fatal to her Title VII claims. (Only “employees” can assert claims under Title VII.)
Background
Blake Lively starred in and worked on the production of It Ends With Us, a film produced by Wayfarer Studios and others. Ms. Lively alleged that during the filming, her co-star Justin Baldoni and Jamey Heath, Wayfarer’s Chief Executive Officer, sexually harassed her and subjected her to a hostile work environment.
She later brought 13 claims against Mr. Baldoni, Mr. Heath, and others, including claims under Title VII, which prohibits workplace harassment and retaliation. Judge Liman dismissed all but three of her claims.
Before the judge could evaluate whether unlawful harassment occurred, he had to answer a threshold question:
Was Ms. Lively even an “employee” under Title VII? The answer was “no.”
Looking beyond her prominence in the project, Judge Liman applied a standard drawn from Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. v. Darden and Community for Creative Non-Violence v. Reid. Under that...
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