A judge has denied a bid by a salon owner to reinstate a defamation lawsuit he dismissed earlier this year against rapper T.I. and his wife, Tameka “Tiny” Harris, finding that the hairstylist had failed to demonstrate “excusable neglect.”
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Shultz issued his ruling Friday, saying that plaintiff Sabrina Peterson “failed to appear and failed to make multiple appearances or to conduct any discovery whatsoever” and also “repeatedly failed to prosecute her case over four years and failed to comply with the court’s orders.”
Thus, “excusable neglect” did not take place in Peterson’s case, according to Shultz. Excusable neglect is a legal standard that allows a party to be relieved of a judgment or order if they failed to act due to a reasonable and justifiable circumstance, such as a mistake, inadvertence or surprise.
In his March 24 ruling dismissing the remaining claims in Peterson’s case, Shultz again noted that the plaintiff had stopped participating in the case. However, the judge’s decision was “without prejudice,” leaving the door open for him to change his mind during Friday’s hearing.
In her court papers, Peterson contended she was caught off guard by the March ruling.
“I was blindsided, surprised, at a loss for words and in a state of shock when my case was dismissed, even though I was not aware it was an issue on calendar before the court that day and I was not able to effectively articulate my objection to dismissing my claim,” Peterson said. “I did not understand the effects of what took place … and my claim being dismissed was a mistake of law resulting in excusable neglect.”
Peterson filed suit in March 2021. In an Instagram post two months earlier, Peterson accused the 45-year-old T.I., whose real name is Clifford Harris, of putting a gun to her head. She also shared statements from more than 30 women who claimed they had allegedly been drugged or forced into sex by the Harrises.
The couple denied the gun accusation in an official statement and both issued responses on Instagram as well. Tameka Harris, 50, posted a photo of Peterson’s 8-year-old son and told Peterson to stop harassing her family and seek help, while T.I. posted an eight-minute video denying the allegations.
In September 2021, now-retired Judge David Sotelo denied an anti-SLAPP motion brought by the Harrises. The state’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
The judge found that Peterson had shown a “probability of prevailing” on her claims against the couple for not only defamation per se and defamation trade libel, but also for invasion of privacy, intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage and both intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress.
But in June 2023, a three-justice panel of the Second District Court of Appeal unanimously ruled that most of Peterson’s claims should be stricken, including those for trade libel, intentional and negligent interference with prospective economic advantage and intentional infliction of emotional distress. Justice Audra Mori, who wrote the opinion, also said the Harrises were entitled to attorney’s fees.
In October 2023, Judge Anne Richardson, who inherited the case from Sotelo, granted the couple $96,700 in attorney’s fees. In their court papers objecting to the reinstatement of Peterson’s case, the couple’s lawyers contend that she has not paid the attorneys’ fees and that the plaintiff also has flouted the court’s orders on social media.
“Peterson and her multiple sets of attorneys failed to prosecute, or even meaningfully participate in, the lawsuit she filed over four years ago,” according to the Harris’ attorneys’ pleadings, which further state that neither the plaintiff nor her lawyers even bothered to show up for arguments before the Court of Appeal.
Peterson previously said she offered to dismiss her lawsuit in return for an apology and an admission by the Harris couple of the falsity of their remarks.