{"id":231225,"date":"2025-10-17T09:51:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:51:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/231225\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T09:51:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T09:51:07","slug":"kevin-costner-sexual-harassment-suit-by-horizon-stuntwoman-allowed-to-proceed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/231225\/","title":{"rendered":"Kevin Costner Sexual Harassment Suit By ‘Horizon’ Stuntwoman Allowed To Proceed"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tKevin Costner<\/a> came up quite short today in his bid to have Horizon<\/a> II stuntwoman Devyn LaBella\u2019s sexual harassment<\/a> and hostile workplace lawsuit tossed out.<\/a> Still, while industry vet LaBella saw only two of her 10 claims against the Oscar winner dismissed, lawyers for Costner are already promising late Thursday to file a fast appeal. <\/p>\n

\n\tFollowing a hearing downtown this morning in LA Superior Court, Judge Jon R. Takasugi affirmed his tentative ruling in the initially May filed matter <\/a>\u2013 and, put it this way, it wasn\u2019t quite as bad as Waterworld for Costner, but he was certainly left legal drenched. \u201cDefendants\u2019 special motion to strike is GRANTED as to the fourth and seventh causes of action, but DENIED as to all other causes of action,\u201d he said in a final ruling<\/a> stripping LaBella\u2019s Sexual Harassment in Violation of California Civil Code claim and her Interference with the Exercise of Civil Rights In Violation of the Bane Act claim from the suit going forward.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile Plaintiffs evidence could show that a reasonable person would have felt harassed, the evidence could not support a claim that Plaintiff felt that she would be subjected to physical violence if she did not participate in the scene,\u201d Judge Takasugi stated of the on the still unreleased second film in the Costner heavy financed Horizon: An American Saga<\/a> franchise. <\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Kevin<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\tKevin Costner on the Horizon II set in 2023<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tFrom court filing<\/p>\n

\n\tPreviously, Costner\u2019s team has termed LaBella\u2019s accusations \u00a0<\/a>of being \u201cthe victim of a violent unscripted, unscheduled rape scene,\u201d with the lack of SAG-AFTRA mandated \u201cintimacy or stunt coordinatoron the May 2, 2023 set of Horizon II was the absence of \u201can intimacy or stunt coordinator,\u00a0a \u201cbold-faced lie<\/a>.\u201d The Yellowstone vet also called the whole action an attempt to \u201cdamage my reputation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tAt this point in the case, looking to head towards trial more than ever, that\u2019s not how Judge Takasugi saw things in his final order today<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWhile Plaintiff alleges a single incident, she submitted evidence which could show that she was subjected to an unplanned simulated rape scene which was performed without a discussion, explanation, choreography session or stunt or intimacy coordinator present,\u201d the judge wrote in his final order on the Marty Singer<\/a> repped Costner\u2019s anti-SLAPP motion Thursday. \u201cAt the very least, this evidence could suggest that a reasonable person, in the same position, and considering all the circumstance, would find this to be a hostile work environment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs such, the Court finds Plaintiff has substantiated a legally tenable claim through a facially sufficient evidentiary showing for her claims for sexual discrimination and harassment. Given this conclusion, Plaintiff has necessarily substantiated a legally tenable claim for failure to prevent.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn documents placed in the LASC docket last month, LaBella\u2019s \u00a0Hadsell Stormer Renick & Dai and Valli Kane & Vagnini lawyers stated: The May 2nd shot was missing all of Ms. Labella\u2019s contractually required protections. This is the basis for the lawsuit,\u00a0not\u00a0the content or creative process of filming a sexually violent film.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThursday, in what may be the heaviest part of today\u2019s order, Judge Takasugi put the weight of his interpretation of the law and labor contracts on LaBella\u2019s side. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAs for the breach of contract cause of action, Plaintiff submitted evidence that provisions of the SAG-AFTRA Basic Agreement (MBA or Basic Agreement) were breached,\u201d he wrote of the lack of the intimacy or stunt coordinator for the rape scene LaBella was doing in the absence of lead Horizon II actress Ella Hunt. \u201cPlaintiff has submitted evidence to show that these provisions were breached when blocking out the incident in question, and Plaintiff has thus substantiated a legally tenable claim through a facially sufficient evidentiary showing for her claim for breach of contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLaBella was at the LASC session this morning. Kevin Costner was not. <\/p>\n

\n\tAfter the hearing, LaBella lawyer James A. Vagnini told Deadline: \u201cToday, the court stood with Devyn and recognized the strong merits of her case, an important step towards unveiling the truth about what happened that day and creating accountability for those who abuse their power. We hope the Defendants won\u2019t waste any more time on frivolous motions and panicked stall tactics, and instead allow for the discovery phase, when we\u2019ll hear directly from the witnesses on set about the events that transpired. We look forward to our continued pursuit of justice for Ms.LaBella as she bravely continues to stand her ground.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFellow attorney Kate McFarlane added: \u201cThe creative process cannot and does not give men in power complete impunity to abuse women like Ms. LaBella. We were confident we would prevail against Defendants on this frivolous motion, and we did. We anticipate Defendants will continue to employ similar tactics in an attempt to prevent their despicable conduct from ever reaching the eyes and ears of a jury. We won\u2019t back down.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn the other side, never one to walk away from a fight for his clients, Singer said: \u201cWe were pleased to learn that the Court granted our anti-SLAPP motion in part, dismissing two of the plaintiff\u2019s claims \u2013 including one of her claims for sexual harassment. While\u00a0we were disappointed with the Court\u2019s decision to allow her remaining causes of action to proceed, the evidence is clear that they have no legal or factual merit, and we plan to appeal the Court\u2019s decision promptly. In spite of the plaintiff\u2019s outlandish allegations, there was never any \u2018simulated rape,\u2019 \u2018simulated sex\u2019 or sexual harassment \u2013 and absolutely no retaliation. Rather, she is seeking millions of dollars for agreeing to participate in the rehearsal of a single, benign shot that even she admits was explained to her in advance. We will continue to fight for the truth and we are extremely confident we will prevail.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tPerhaps, perhaps, but what is sure is that Costner has another kick at the case on the calendar for December in a demurrer hearing. Still, with the disappointing box office of the first Horizon, the lack of Horizon II on the big screen, and third and fourth installments of Horizon looking as likely as a return of the Wild West itself, however this case ends up sorted, Costner may still come a cropper. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kevin Costner came up quite short today in his bid to have Horizon II stuntwoman Devyn LaBella\u2019s sexual…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":231226,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[236,88,119815,64441,12669,64442,3044],"class_list":{"0":"post-231225","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-celebrities","9":"tag-entertainment","10":"tag-horizon","11":"tag-horizon-an-american-saga","12":"tag-kevin-costner","13":"tag-marty-singer","14":"tag-sexual-harassment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231225","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=231225"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/231225\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/231226"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=231225"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=231225"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=231225"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}