Netflix isn't getting out of its Baby Reindeer defamation suit that easy
Now that Netflix series Baby Reinder is now "Emmy-winning Netflix series Baby Reindeer"—with the series running a minor sweep in the "Limited Series" categories at this year's awards, winning for Best Series, Best Actor and Writing for creator Richard Gadd, and a Best Supporting Actress win for co-star Jessica Gunning—all involved might have hoped it would now be smooth sailing for the series. Not so much, turns out, as THR reports tonight that a judge has shot down Netflix's early attempts to get a defamation suit against it, based around the content of the series, thrown out of court.
This is, of course, the suit from U.K. resident Fiona Harvey, which claims that Gunning's Martha character in the series—who spends years stalking Gadd, playing a fictionalized version of himself as a struggling comedian—was based on her. Netflix tried to get the suit tossed out on anti-SLAPP legislation—usually the first stop for this sort of thing, covering defamation cases that the defendants assert are "intended to chill free speech"—only to have a California judge shut it down. Judge R. Gary Klausner apparently put special focus on Netflix's decision to market the show as "based on a true story" when making his ruling, noting that Netflix may have "insisted on adding" the disclaimer despite Gadd's own hesitation. "This suggests a reckless disregard of whether the statements in the series were false," the court order stated.
Harvey's position, ever since she came forward after online detectives sussed her out not long after the show's April 2024 release, is that Baby Reindeer contains enough details for people to ID her (see previous half of this sentence), while still attributing several traits to Martha that Harvey has said aren't true to her life. (Notably, the character in the show has a prior conviction for stalking, while Harvey states that she has never been convicted for a crime.) The lawsuit, which is only aimed at Netflix, and not Gadd, accuses the streamer of "doing literally nothing" to fact-check the show before sending it out to win Emmys with a "Based on a true story" attached.
The judge did trim out some of the claims in Harvey's suit, taking out claims for negligence, right of publicity and punitive damages, while leaving in a claim for intentional infliction of emotional distress. The biggie is the defamation charge, though, and that one's sticking: Netflix's first steps to get the suit tossed out as a matter of course have now run straight into a legal wall.