LEWIS v. 20th CENTURY FOX
Entertainment/Employment case. The plaintiff claimed that his AIDS was caused or exacerbated by inhaling “Fuller’s Earth” while it was being blown around during the shooting of a battle scene in “Planet of the Apes”, a Tim Burton movie that plaintiff worked on as a hairdresser. Extremely competent counsel for one of our co-defendants took the lead on moving for summary judgment, which we joined in, only to have the other parties all settle out before the Court reached a decision. We declined to settle and were preparing for trial when the decision in our favor came down. This was another case where tender of defense was ignored and continues to be pressed, even after a year from tender. We kept our costs to a minimum, but reimbursement from the parties we tendered to will prove to be a waste for them. They could have represented our clients, a movie rental house, under the certificates of insurance they gave our clients, without significant additional cost had they accepted the tender instead of ignoring it.
