Alec Baldwin stands accused of the involuntary manslaughter of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins (top right) on the set of “Rust” (bottom right).
Alec Baldwin says that the lawsuit brought by the parents of the cinematographer who died on the set of his movie “Rust” after a gun he was using during a rehearsal fired off a real bullet should be dismissed because the family didn’t have a close enough relationship to justify the lawsuit.
Halyna Hutchins was killed in October 2021 when Baldwin fired a gun that contained a live bullet. Director Joel Souza was also injured. Baldwin is facing manslaughter charges, as is armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, while former “Rust” assistant director David Halls received a suspended jail sentence in March on a lesser charge.
Olga Solovey, Anatolii Androsovych, and Svetlana Zemko — the mother, father, and sister, respectively, of Halyna Hutchins — sued in February, alleging battery, intentional infliction of emotional distress, negligence, and loss of consortium — a claim that allows family members, normally spouses, to sue over a loss of the benefits of a family relationship.
All three of the plaintiffs are Ukrainian residents who live in or near Kyiv, Ukraine. They named several defendants, including Baldwin specifically and the production company Rust Movie Products.
In a filing on Friday, defense lawyers argued that the family’s claims should be dismissed. Calling the parents’ lawsuit “especially misguided” and hinting that the complaint was possibly plagiarized, the motion argues that the family hasn’t stated sufficient facts to support its claim and that the argument that New Mexico law should apply — even though the lawsuit was filed in California — doesn’t hold up.
“The Complaint provides little factual support for these causes of action, and fails to explain the basis for the ‘substantial and foreseeable compensable loss of consortium damages’ that Plaintiffs allegedly suffered,” the motion says (citations omitted). “Instead, Plaintiffs’ factual allegations focus almost exclusively on negligence and appear to have been cut and pasted from some other pleading.”
The demurrer, which seeks a dismissal of the plaintiffs’ claims, says that the lawsuits should have ended with the October settlement of the wrongful death lawsuit brought by husband Matthew Hutchins.
“Matthew Hutchins and Alec Baldwin, both operating under the specific desire to honor her legacy and do what is best for Halyna’s son, reached a settlement in October 2022,” the filing says. “That should have been the end of the matter.”
The filing appears to acknowledge the tragedy of losing a family member but implies that Hutchins’ relationship with the plaintiffs wasn’t as close as the plaintiffs’ lawsuit would suggest.
“The loss of a daughter and sister is undoubtedly painful in any circumstance,” the motion says. “Yet Plaintiffs — who had been distanced from Halyna physically, financially, and emotionally for years before her death — have no viable cause of action against Defendants.”
The motion argues that California law should apply, and not that of New Mexico, as requested by plaintiffs.
“Plaintiffs have no connection to the State of New Mexico,” the filing says, adding that the plaintiffs made an “erroneous assumption that the location of the accident dictates the applicable law,” and that since “most defendants” in the case are California residents – as was Hutchins – the law of the Golden State should apply.
The filing also says that the plaintiffs’ decision to try to get New Mexico law to apply is because that state is an “outlier in permitting familial, non-spousal recovery for loss of consortium.”
According to the motion, the consortium claim fails under the laws of both states, in any case. It would fail in California because the law there only allows loss of consortium claims to be brought by the spouse of the deceased. But the claim would fail in New Mexico as well, Baldwin’s lawyers said, because Hutchins’ family members didn’t have a “sufficiently close relationship” as required by law in the Land of Enchantment, which requires a showing of “mutual dependence” in order to sustain a consortium claim.
“Plaintiffs have not, and cannot, show a relationship with Halyna that satisfies the ‘mutual dependence’ element, or any of the elements, needed to sustain a loss of consortium claim,” the motion says (citations omitted). “They allege only in conclusory fashion that they had a relationship with Halyna that ‘included mutual dependence, shared experiences, financial support and dependence, emotional reliance on each other.’ They further allege—again, only in conclusory fashion—that they have lost the ‘love, companionship, comfort, care, assistance, protection, affection, society, guidance, training, assistance, and moral support of Halyna’, yet fail to provide even a single example.”
Gloria Allred, who is representing Hutchins’ family in the case, dismissed the validity of Baldwin’s arguments.
“We are not surprised that Alec Baldwin is once again attempting to avoid responsibility for what he did,” Allred said in a statement emailed to Law&Crime. “It is abundantly clear under New Mexico law, which will be applied in the California court that he is responsible for all of the harm he did to the entirety of Halyna Hutchins’ family. We are here to make sure that he is held accountable for his actions.
Read Baldwin’s filing, via Deadline, here.
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