A former HBO executive won a round in court Tuesday when a judge ruled a jury will decide whether the producers of the 2016 Emmys show at the Microsoft Theater are liable for injuries she suffered after falling near the red carpet that took months to heal.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Susan Bryant-Deason denied a motion by attorneys for 28 Awards Productions Inc. to remove them as defendants in plaintiff Nancy Lesser’s case, saying there are triable issues as to whether the company was responsible for the design of the red carpet and therefore possibly liable for premises liability and negligence.
The judge did dismiss a third cause of action against the producers for vicarious liability, finding that 28 Awards was not the employer of any of the other defendants: ABC Inc., the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, LA Live Theater LLC and LA Live Properties Inc.
Lesser is the former executive vice president of media and talent at HBO, a job she left last October. She also sued the city of Los Angeles when she brought her lawsuit in November 2017, but her attorney, Jeff A. Lesser, later dismissed the city as a defendant. The Lessers are siblings.
Lesser says the fall occurred Sept. 18, 2016, as she was leaving the Microsoft Theater on a crowded walkway after the Emmys show to go to HBO’s after-party. She maintains she tripped on one of several dirt spaces with trees that line one edge of the red carpet, which she never saw because of the conditions. She says she fell backward, landed on her right hip and fractured her pelvis and that she missed time from work while taking eight months to recuperate.
Instead of going to the HBO after-party, which she had been charged with setting up, Lesser ended up in the emergency room at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, according to her suit.
Jeff Lesser said after the hearing that the throng of people was so large, it was hard to move. He further said the lighting was poor and that a safer way for people to leave should have been available.
Lawyers for 28 Awards Productions maintained in their court papers that the company “had no role in managing the crowd inside or outside the Microsoft Theater, did not own or control the premises or the walkway on which (Lesser) fell, did not design or construct the walkway and had no role in directing event attendees towards the walkway” on which Lesser fell.