Robert De Niro, who you may remember from such films as Righteous Kill, The Family, and Dirty Grandpa, will be allowed to bring claims against a former employee to federal court despite his request to do so arriving late, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
Here’s the back story: In August 2019, De Niro and his company, Canal Productions, filed a $6 million lawsuit against former VP of Production and Finance Graham Chase Robinson. The suit alleged that she abused company credit cards ($12,696.65 in unauthorized charges at Paola’s restaurant) and binge-watched television, including 55 episodes of Friends, 20 episodes of Arrested Development, and 10 episodes of Schitt’s Creek while on the clock.
In October 2019, Robinson responded with a gender discrimination lawsuit in New York federal court, saying that she was treated as an “office wife.”
“Robert De Niro is someone who has clung to old mores,” her claim read. “He does not accept the idea that men should treat women as equals. He does not care that gender discrimination in the workplace violates the law.”
The suit also claimed that De Niro made unwelcome physical contact (“De Niro would direct Ms. Robinson to scratch his back, button his shirts, fix his collars, tie his ties and prod him awake when he was in bed”) and that he “stood idly by” when a friend slapped her buttocks.
In December 2019, Variety reported that “De Niro’s company, Canal Productions, filed suit first in retaliation after learning that she was pursuing legal action,” according to Robinson’s attorneys. Her team also reportedly asked the Friends claims to be struck.
“These inflammatory accusations are scandalous and prejudicial — so much so that they ‘went viral,’” their motion read.
Robinson’s counter-suit led to arguments over which lawsuit (his $6 million dollar claim against her, or her claim about office discrimination against him) should proceed first, and whether at the state or federal level. In April of this year, De Niro’s lawyer, Gregory Bennett, said he was prepared to “amend the answer to Robinson’s suit and assert counterclaims.” Robinson’s lawyer Alexandra Harwin responded that this move was made in bad faith and suggested that De Niro went to the office of Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance “in this feud.”
Additionally, she asserted that the thousands of dollars spent on flowers were actually for “the Canal office, Mr. De Niro’s apartment, parties and events Mr. De Niro hosted.”
The latest development is that De Niro’s request to amend his initial claims and re-plead his state claims in a federal court was tardy. U.S. District Judge Katharine H. Parker has stated that the lateness was the state court’s fault, and not the fault of De Niro or his legal team.
According to the Hollywood Reporter, “Parker also denied Robinson’s bid to keep allegations about her Netflix watching, job duties and compensation out of the federal dispute.”
Ultimately, while we don’t yet have a precise date, this showdown is finally coming. If De Niro’s Canal Productions is a bastion of cavemen, we oughta know about it. And if there are 55 episodes of Friends being binge-watched while the man who played Jake LaMotta fumes, we oughta know about that too.
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