The armorer for the film “Rust,” charged in the fatal accidental shooting of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins on the set of the movie in 2021, has won release on personal jurisdictional grounds from a lawsuit filed by the movie’s script supervisor.
Attorneys for 26-year-old Hannah Guttierez-Reed maintained that their client has no significant ties to California that would allow plaintiff Mamie Mitchell’s lawyers to bring the armorer as a party into a California court. Mitchell was the script supervisor for “Rust” and filed suit in November 2021.
On Friday, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mel Red Recana granted Gutierrez-Reed’s request to quash Mitchell’s service of summons. The motion was unopposed by Mitchell’s lawyers.
in their court papers, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys argued that the armorer has not had “continuous and systematic affiliations with California sufficient to render her essentially at home in the state of California.”
Mitchell was standing adjacent to Hutchins, 42, when the cinematographer was killed Oct. 21, 2021, while Baldwin, a producer and star of “Rust,” was helping to prepare camera angles for a scene on the film’s set near Santa Fe, New Mexico. The 65-year-old Baldwin fired a prop gun that was supposed to contain only blank rounds, but instead discharged a lead bullet that struck Hutchins in the chest, then lodged in the shoulder of director Joel Souza, now 50.
Mitchell maintains she suffered emotional distress from being so close to the shooting.
In their court papers, Gutierrez-Reed’s attorneys say their client acknowledges she sometimes used the residence of a friend living in California as a mailing address, but maintains she never lived there.
Gutierrez-Reed’s lawyers included the armorer’s sworn declaration in support of her motion.
“My only employment in the state of California was two days spent as a production assistant for the movie “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” in 2018,” Gutierrez-Reed said. “I also had unpaid work of one week as a production assistant on “Good Time Girls” during June 2016.”
Gutierrez-Reed’s trial on involuntary manslaughter and evidence tampering charges is scheduled for February.