A Californian judge has declined to dismiss a lawsuit that accuses Garth Brooks of sexual assault, though mainly on a technicality pending the outcome of litigation filed by Brooks himself in another court.
An unnamed women who previously worked as a stylist for Brooks, listed as Jane Roe in legal papers, filed a lawsuit with the courts in California in October, making various allegations of sexual harassment and assault against the country star. However, by that point Brooks had already filed a lawsuit in Mississippi accusing Roe of defamation and extortion.
Speaking to Deadline in October, Brooks said that he sued Roe after being “hassled to no end with threats, lies and tragic tales”, with Roe allegedly demanding millions to stop her going public with her allegations. Brooks went legal instead, because, he said, if he paid Roe the “hush money” she was demanding, “that means I am admitting to behaviour I am incapable of - ugly acts no human should ever do to another”.
After Roe had filed her lawsuit in California, Brooks tried to get it dismissed on the basis that, because he had filed his lawsuit first, Roe should have made her allegations in a counterclaim to his litigation. Lawyers working for Roe then disputed that claim, arguing that Brooks was simply “forum shopping”, ie trying to force the dispute to a court in Mississippi rather than in California.
Which state the litigation is fought out in is important because Brooks’ claim of defamation against Roe might be harder to win in California where there are particularly strong anti-SLAPP rules.
Those rules seek to stop ‘strategic lawsuits against public participation’, basically lawsuits that are mainly filed to pressure another party to not speak out on a specific issue, usually an issue of public interest. Such lawsuits are seen as an attack on free speech rights.
By trying to force the dispute to Mississippi, Roe’s lawyers argued, Brooks was attempting to deny their client “access to her preferred forum and to an anti-SLAPP statute”.
Roe has made similar arguments back in Mississippi where she is trying to get Brooks’ lawsuit dismissed. The judge in the Californian court, Michael W Fitzgerald, concluded that, because the lawsuit in Mississippi was filed first, he should defer to the court there when it comes to making a judgement on the forum shopping and anti-SLAPP claims.
To that end, he declined to dismiss Roe’s lawsuit at this time, stating that “the most appropriate course of action is to allow the Mississippi court to adjudicate” on Roe’s “equitable arguments in the first instance”. Because that court “has not yet ruled”, dismissal of Roe’s lawsuit in California “is inappropriate at this time”.