LOS ANGELES (AP) – A settlement agreement has been reached in a lawsuit alleging that James Franco intimidated students at an acting and film school he founded in gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations.
A status report submitted jointly by the two parties to the Los Angeles High Court said that an agreement had been reached on the class action lawsuit filed by former students of the defunct Studio 4 school, although elements of the demand may continue. The document was filed on February 11, but the agreement has not been previously reported.
Actresses and alumni Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who first filed the lawsuit in 2019, have agreed to withdraw their individual claims under the agreement, according to the court statement. His lawsuit said Franco pushed his students to act in increasingly explicit sex scenes on camera in an “orgy-type setting” that goes far beyond what is acceptable on Hollywood movie stages.
He alleged that Franco “tried to create a channel for young women who were the object of their personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education,” and that the students led them to believe that the roles in the films of Franco would be available to all who went on throughout his career.
The lawsuits said the incidents occurred in a master class on sex scenes that Franco taught at Studio 4, which opened in 2014 and closed in 2017.
The two sides had been in several debates over an agreement for several months and judicial advances had been halted as they spoke. Emails were sent to several lawyers on both sides seeking comments on the deal and did not immediately return further details about the terms.
In a lawsuit filed earlier, Franco’s lawyers, praising the #MeToo movement that helped inspire the lawsuit, called their claims “false and inflammatory, without legal basis and presented as a class action with the the obvious goal of getting as much publicity as possible to cater to it. Famous plaintiffs. ”They noted that Tither-Kaplan had previously expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to work with Franco.
The lawsuit also names Franco producer Rabbit Bandini and her partners, including Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis, as defendants.
Complaints of sexual exploitation of other plaintiffs in the class action will be dismissed without prejudice, so that they may be re-filed, according to the joint state report.
The fraud allegations filed by these plaintiffs will be “subject to limited liberty,” the document says, without further details or explanations.
The document does not disclose how much money may be involved in the deal, which the parties say will be submitted to the court for preliminary approval before March 15.
Prior to filing the lawsuit, Tither-Kaplan filed her allegations of sexual misconduct against Franco along with other women in the Los Angeles Times after Franco won a Golden Globe Award for “The Disaster Artist” in early 2018, when the wave of the #MeToo movement was sweeping Hollywood.
In a later interview on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” Franco called the stories of sexual misconduct about him inaccurate, but said, “If I did something wrong, I’ll fix it. I have to.”
Franco, 42, best known for starring in comedies with Seth Rogen, has generally kept a low profile since the allegations arose in what had been a highly productive period culminating in the acclaimed “disaster artist.”
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