A Los Angeles judge has tossed the sexual assault lawsuit filed by an anonymous woman who alleges composer and musician Danny Elfman groomed and abused her between 1997 and 2002 when she was in her twenties and he was twice her age.
In a judgment signed Wednesday, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Lisa K. Sepe-Wiesenfeld granted Elfman’s motion for summary judgment and said the Jane Doe plaintiff “shall take nothing from this action.” In a related minute order, the judge found that Jane Doe didn’t qualify for revival of her decades-old claims because her lawsuit “failed” to establish the elements of sexual assault required by the revival statute she cited.
In her lawsuit, the woman alleged that Elfman frequently exposed himself to her and told her that he masturbated next to her while she was asleep and couldn’t consent to the act. She and her lawyers argued that they needed to take Elfman’s deposition to establish the required elements of her case. Elfman, meanwhile, signed a declaration last May stating he “never sexually assaulted” the plaintiff and “never physically restrained [her] or used or threatened to use any physical force against [her].”
In her ruling, the judge found that “no triable issue of fact” existed considering Elfman denied any wrongdoing under oath and Jane Doe admitted she was asleep at the time of the alleged assault. “Plaintiff has provided only speculative statements that it is possible she could have been sexually assaulted,” the judge wrote in her order. “The court must presume that Elfman will testify at his deposition to the same facts set forth in his declaration. … There is no basis to conclude that additional discovery in the form of Elfman’s deposition would help plaintiff to create a triable issue.”
The judge further ruled that the woman’s claims for gender violence, intentional infliction of emotional distress, sexual harassment and negligence were too old to pursue. Responding to the ruling, Jane Doe’s lawyer says his client stands by her claims.
“We are disappointed but not shocked that the court found that the law does not permit her case to proceed. It doesn’t change the fact Jane Doe exposed a serious danger: a well-regarded celebrity who used his position and his power for his pernicious pleasure,” Doe’s lawyer, Jeff Anderson, says in a statement.
Anderson claimed that because his client was asleep at the time of the alleged assault, “we could not plead the case that met the legal requirements to proceed. It doesn’t change the fact that he manipulated and used his position over Jane Doe and at least one other survivor. This is still a testament to Jane Doe’s courage to expose a real peril in the entertainment industry.”
A rep for Elfman did not immediately reply to a request for comment, but Elfman and his lawyers previously called Jane Doe’s lawsuit “meritless.”
The musician still is facing separate legal claims from Nomi Abadi, a Los Angeles composer who alleges Elfman exposed himself and sexually harassed her in 2016 and then entered into an $830,000 settlement and nondisclosure agreement with her a year later. Abadi filed a breach of contract lawsuit regarding the settlement last year, alleging Elfman had missed several payments. The matter was sent to arbitration. In a separate filing, Abadi sued Elfman for defamation in July.
