A Judge Has Dismissed Kesha’s Abuse Claims Against Sony And Dr. Luke
Almost two months ago, New York County Supreme Justice Shirley Kornreich dismissed Kesha’s preliminary injunction request to free her from her contract with Sony and her alleged abuser Dr. Luke. Kesha’s lawyers responded with an appeal arguing that Sony’s refusal to release Kesha from her contract with a dude she doesn’t want to work with is “slavery.” It turns out that argument wasn’t good enough for Judge Shirley, because The Hollywood Reporter says she’s gone ahead and dismissed Kesha’s appeal too.
THR says Judge Shirley slapped down all but one of Kesha’s abuse claims. Judge Shirley side-eyed Kesha’s claim that her contract with Sony is “slavery” by saying: “Courts generally will not enforce a contract for personal services because slavery has been outlawed since the 19th Century.” She also wasn’t feeling Kesha’s claim that Dr. Luke’s alleged abuse was a violation of “hate crime” laws. According to Judge Shirley, there isn’t any evidence that Dr. Luke hates women. She adds: “Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime.” her allegations of rape against Dr. Luke because they happened in 2005 and 2008 and passed the statute-of-limitations.
She also brought up Sony giving Kesha the option to work with producers who aren’t Dr. Luke and says she’s acting “unreasonably” for not taking them up on that offer. As for Kesha’s accusations that Dr. Luke intentionally inflicted emotional distress on her by saying a bunch of mean shit about her body, Judge Shirley says that doesn’t count for much either. Unless there is evidence of physical violence or property damage, Judge Shirley says she can’t do anything.
“Insults about her value as an artist, her looks, and her weight are insufficient to constitute extreme, outrageous conduct intolerable in civilized society.”
Judge Shirley says the only allegations that technically count would be Kesha’s accusation that Dr. Luke assaulted her on an airplane in 2005 and in a hotel room in 2008. But due to the statute-of-limitations, Judge Shirley says she can’t do anything about that either because too much time has passed. Also, some of Kesha’s claims against Dr. Luke didn’t happen in New York City, which means Judge Shirley doesn’t have jurisdiction to hear them.
However, THR says Kesha still has the lawsuit she filed in California that was put on hold so that both parties could try to work it out in New York first. That lawsuit was the one where Kesha accused Dr. Luke of assaulting and drugging her. So this probably isn’t the end of Kesha vs. Dr. Luke and Sony just yet.
A few days ago, Kesha accused Sony of trying to make a deal on the down-low where they’d let her out of her contract if she would publicly apologize to Dr. Luke and admit that her accusations were lies. (Which Dr. Luke’s spokesperson totally denied.). I wish there was a way Kesha could trick them, Rumpelstiltskin-style, into apologizing without actually saying the words “I’m sorry, Dr. Luke.” Maybe she could convince a stranger to legally change their name to Kesha, hold a press conference, and say the words: “My name is Kesha and I’d like to apologize to Dr. Luke.” Then when Sony refuses to tear up her contract, she can remind them that they never specified which Kesha had to apologize and threaten to sic her dream team of lawyers on them for trying to renege on their verbal agreement. Damn, you know a situation is bad when you’re trying to use clever technicalities to get out of it.
Pic: Splash