Jury finds Robert De Niro not liable for gender discrimination, but company must still pay damages
The actor's longtime personal assistant, accused of misusing company resources, claimed De Niro treated her as his "office wife"
Aux News Robert De Niro
The jury in the civil suit involving Robert De Niro and his longtime personal assistant Graham Chase Robinson has determined that the actor is not liable for gender discrimination against Robinson, but Deadline is reporting that his production company still must pay her $1.26 million in damages. In a statement, Robinson’s attorney said that the jury “completely vindicated” her.
De Niro had initially sued Robinson for allegedly misusing resources from his Canal Productions label before she quit her position as its Director Of Production And Finance, saying she had transferred millions of the company’s frequent-flier miles to her personal account and had regularly used company money on personal errands.
But Robinson responded with a suit of her own, accusing her former boss of treating her like his “office wife” and subjecting her to “gratuitous unwanted physical contact,” “sexually-charged comments,” and stereotypically gendered duties like housework, in addition to allegedly asking her to “scratch his back, button his shirts, fix his collars, tie his ties, and prod him awake when he was in bed” (tasks that she called “creepy” while on the stand). Robinson’s side also argued that nobody at Canal had questioned her financial decisions until she quit, at which point the company supposedly started looking for a problem.
Earlier in the course of the trial, while on the stand, De Niro shouted comments like “shame on you” and “give me a break with this stuff” at Robinson, saying she was making it sound like she was “out in front of the building on he knees scrubbing the floor.” One questioned that seemed to frustrate him was whether or not he had ever talked to her on the phone while he “audibly urinated in the bathroom.”
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talked to her on the phone while he “audibly urinated in the bathroom.”Still funny.
I mean, sure, that’s rude, but is it actionable?
HE WAS TAKIN’ THE PISS WHEN HE WAS TAKIN’ A PISS, YOUR HONOUR!
The asking her to fix his collars and ties part is even more bizarre. It sounds like he treated her like a personal assistant and she saw herself as more than that.
I don’t think it’s anything to be upset about, no, and I would tell everyone Robert De Niro once audibly pissed while I was on the phone with him, as a funny anecdote.
One questioned that seemed to frustrate him was whether or not he had ever talked to her on the phone while he “audibly urinated in the bathroom.”Analyze This Urine
That was quite literally a Monty Python sketch that got scrapped at the script stage.
Are you talkin’ to me?
Lil’ bit!
Someone needs to explain this to me (no trolls, please). If he didn’t discriminate against her or do anything wrong, why does he need to pay damages?
The AVC’s been desperately trying to paint this as “Oh, it was just a poor innocent woman mistreated but an evil old white man for no reason!” because clicks, but I’m going to guess that the compensation is for being accused of misusing company funds and getting fired. They’re likely conflating the two deliberately. That’s Barsanti, baby!
It appears I must state this again:No trolls, please!
It confused me too. From what I can tell by reading a couple of the articles about it, his production company was found liable. It looks like the court allowed an agency jury instruction opening the door for the jury to find De Niro’s girlfriend was an agent of the corporation. It seems like there was a lot of friction between the girlfriend and the plaintiff and it may have been the girlfriend’s conduct for which the the jury found the corporation liable. The jury may not have wanted to find De Niro personally liable, but did want to award the plaintiff damages. This was one way to do that. I still don’t know why the verdict included two awards of $600,000 plus. That’s not making sense to me. Anyone?
She sued both his production company, Canal and De Niro personally. Canal was found guilty, but DeNiro personally is not, but because Canal is still his company, he winds up paying anyway.
It turns out it was the production company talking to her while it urinated.
Is this one of “those” cases where the law has to step in and say “we know you did it but we can’t quite prove it, so here’s an award?”
It looks like the legal team (company lawyer) retaliated after she complained. De Niro’s behavior was not found excessive, but the claimed retaliation was.
I want a decent sock that’s comfortable, that will stay on my foot!
Publicly shouting at his former assistant like that. Wow, that’s certainly not telling on yourself.
Graham?