Bill Maher and HBO want sexual harassment allegation dropped from former ‘Real Time’ employee’s lawsuit

HBO and Bill Maher’s production company are trying to settle a sexual harassment allegation that is part of a lawsuit against a former alum Real Time with Bill Maher Colleague.

“While all of Van Ham’s claims are without merit, her sexual harassment lawsuit fails as a matter of law because (1) it is time-barred and (2) it does not allege facts sufficient to establish a cause of action for negligence. “alleging conduct that was both “based on” her gender and so “serious or far-reaching” as to alter the terms and conditions of her employment,” the defendant alleges, in the first amended version of the Demurrer on Nov. 30 without a motion to strike filed a complaint (read here). “Accordingly, defendants’ objection must be granted in its entirety and without leave to amend,” said the filings by Adam Levin and Sandra Hanian of Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp.

Longtime photographer Janet Van Ham was not rehired by the HBO chat show in the second half of 2020 when production resumed due to Covid-19 protocols and sued HBO and Maher Live on July 31 for sexual harassment and retaliation under Federal Law on Housing and Employment and unlawful act termination.

Question long term Real time A “hostile work environment,” claims Van Ham, who worked on the show from 2011 to 2020, caused repeated harassing behavior over the course of the year from a man named Alex Brooks and other male crew members who were friends with Brooks. Van Ham also emphasizes in her POV that production and CBS security at the Fairfax facility where the show is filmed did little to protect her or investigate her complaints.

Even after Van Ham was fired Real time (“Van Ham is aware and believes that all former employees of RTWBM have been invited back to work and that she is the only one who was constructively excluded from the program after the Covid closure in March 2020,” she claims in her first lawsuit.) Things seemed to get weirder and worse — including the response from “Warner Media attorney Dina Zaki,” who responded to a personal records request from Van Ham “on the grounds that Van Ham was never an employee. The complaint continues: “From November to December 2021, HBO hired an outside investigator to investigate Van Ham’s whistleblower and FEHA complaints with the Human Resources and Labor Commission.” The outside investigator is the same investigator HBO hired, stop always to minimize his wrongdoing in preparation for lawsuits. This external investigator made a number of misrepresentations in his January 2021 report…”

“It’s so hard to be a woman on this set,” Van Ham claims Maher’s stylist, Kelly Smith, told her after a 2014 incident with Brooks. “If you say something, you can be fired.”

Van Ham’s attorneys at Kane Law Firm filed an initial amended complaint on their client’s behalf in late August. The jury trial sought by FAC eliminated the six four claims previously raised in the original lawsuit: retaliation by whistleblowers for labor law violations, age, sex, and gender discrimination for FEHA violations, sexual harassment for FEHA violations, and retaliation if the labor law be violated. FEHA.

Currently, HBO and Maher Live are solely focused on removing sexual harassment from the FAC.

In fact, in its statement of claim filed this week in LA Superior Court, the premium cable television and comics company places the blame for what it says is clearly a legal mess on Van Ham himself. “Van Ham’s complaint of sexual harassment stems from the Year. 2014 legally proves that she knew, or should have known if she exercised reasonable care, [that she] “There was discrimination at the time of the previous events,” says the 15-page protest letter to the Federal Constitutional Court, referring to previous cases of a similar nature.

“Accordingly, there is no justification for Van Ham’s eight-year delay in taking legal action,” HBO and Maher’s response reads bluntly, using the process as a blunt instrument to dismiss Van Ham’s lawsuit.

HBO and Maher Live’s MSK attorneys are demanding a hearing on their protest on Jan. 5 before LASC Judge Holly Fujie. A hearing on the case has already been scheduled for December 13.