YouTube.com personality Jack Doherty and his companies have cited multiple defenses to allegations the video star prompted his bodyguard to beat up a man during a live-streamed 2023 Halloween party, including that the plaintiff assumed the risk.
Chase Cameron Gardella, who is now a practicing lawyer, is the plaintiff in a Van Nuys Superior Court lawsuit filed against Doherty, Jack Doherty LLC, Banger Official LLC and the bodyguard, Justin “Kane Kongg” Goslee. The suit alleges assault, battery, negligence, negligent hiring, retention, supervision and training, aiding and abetting and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
According to the suit, last Oct. 28 Gardella attended a Sherman Oaks Halloween Party and early the next morning was on the street outside talking to Doherty and Goslee when the latter asked, “What are we doing?,” prompting Doherty to respond, “We’re gonna fight. Us two versus you two, all right go,” then gestured that he and Goslee were going to fight Gardella and a friend who was with the plaintiff, the suit states.
Moments later, Goslee punched Gardella in the face, causing him to fall and hurt his head, face and neck, the suit states.
Doherty live-streamed the assault on Gardella on the platform Kick and, in the hours and days that followed, posted videos of the assault on YouTube, X and TikTok channels, where he has a combined 22.8 million followers, the suit alleges.
“Doherty has a history, both before and after the subject incident, of filming himself harassing, assaulting and antagonizing members of the public by having his security guards step in to intimidate and assault them if they react to Doherty’s harassment,” the suit states.
But in court papers filed Friday with Judge Michael R. Amerian, Doherty’s lawyers maintain that Doherty was “acting in defense of others and reasonably believed that (Gardella) was going to harm others and used only the amount of force that was reasonably necessary.”
Doherty’s actions were done in “good faith;” that any losses or damages suffered by the plaintiff resulted from an “unavoidable incident or condition and, as such, were an act of God;” and that Gardella “conducted himself in such a manner so as to expose himself to … perils and dangers…and by so doing assumed all the risks attendant thereto.”
Doherty’s lawyers ask that judgment be entered in his favor and that Gardella “take nothing” from their client.
The judge has scheduled a case management conference for June 20.