The employee sued by actor Robert De Niro has filed a motion to have the lawsuit against her dismissed.
Graham Chase Robinson specifically asked for the court to strike two claims made in the lawsuit, according to a report published Tuesday by Variety. Robinson and her lawyers argued that De Niro’s company, Canal Productions, filed the lawsuit against her only after learning she was pursuing legal action for gender discrimination and workplace harassment.
Robert De Niro Accused of Gender Discrimination in $12M Counter-Lawsuit from Female Ex-Employee https://t.co/lGsCCOADWb
— People (@people) October 3, 2019
The motion filed by Robinson asks the court to dismiss De Niro’s suit until a decision is reached in Robinson’s lawsuit.
The claims she asked to strike included one stating that Robinson had spent four days binge-watching 55 episodes of “Friends.”
“These inflammatory accusations are scandalous and prejudicial — so much so that they ‘went viral,'” the motion claimed. “The allegations are also irrelevant to Canal’s claims: there is no case law holding that purportedly watching television during work gives rise to liability under any of the legal theories Canal advances.” (RELATED: Robert De Niro Facing New Lawsuit For Allegedly Subjecting Employee To Abusive Behavior)
The ex-employee also asked the court to strike the claim made in De Niro’s $3 million lawsuit that alleged Robinson had improperly recorded her vacation days saying she had taken “nearly half a year’s worth of vacation days on the sly.”
Her lawyers argued that the vacation claim is “inherently implausible.”
In Robinson’s lawsuit, filed in October, she claimed she was subjected to gender discrimination in the office.
“Robert De Niro is someone who has clung to old mores,” the lawsuit claimed. “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. Ms. Robinson is a casualty of this attitude.”