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View Winners → News Apr 14, 2022
Photo courtesy of Nikki Margera/Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)
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“Jackass” film creator Bam Margera has dropped his lawsuit alleging Paramount Pictures Corp. wrongfully fired him in 2020 from the “Jackass Forever” film released in February.
Lawyers for Margera filed court papers on Wednesday with a Los Angeles Superior Court judge asking that his case be dismissed “with prejudice,” meaning it cannot be revived later. The court papers do not state whether Margera — whose real name is Brandon Cole Margera — reached a settlement or if he is not pursuing the case for other reasons.
In January, Judge Robert S. Draper dismissed the 42-year-old Margera’s two claims for injunctive relief, but not the unfair competition and copyright infringement causes of action that the defendants also sought to have dismissed under the state’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law, which is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
“Defendants cannot ignore the claims … which have nothing to do with free speech and everything to do with (Margera’s) claim that (he) has a right to be fairly credited and compensated for his work on and contribution to the film and the franchise, with the relief in this case being money damages,” Draper wrote.
In their court papers, the defense attorneys stated that Paramount Pictures Corp., the movie studio that financed and distributed “Jackass Forever,” reached an agreement with Margera that he could participate in the film on the condition that he follow a sobriety and wellness program led by a team of addiction-recovery specialists.
Margera at first was sober and compliant, but within a few months “the wheels came off and Margera committed multiple breaches,” according to the defense attorneys, who alleged in their court papers that Margera stopped regularly taking his mandatory alcohol tests, broke off communications with his treatment team, dodged a drug test and used illicit drugs again.
After Paramount fired Margera in August 2020, he “spun even further out of control, making public and private threats against the Jackass producers,” the defense attorneys alleged in their court papers.
However, Margera maintained that Hollywood studios and producers fired him so they could steal the popular and lucrative movie franchise and not compensate him. Margera and his company, Bam Margera Inc., filed the lawsuit last Aug. 9 against Paramount Pictures, MTV, Jeffrey Tremaine, Johnny Knoxville, Spike Jonze, Dickhouse Entertainment, Gorilla Flicks and others.
The complaint alleges “inhumane, abusive and discriminatory treatment of plaintiff Margera” occurred and states he was wrongfully fired from the “Jackass” franchise he created.
The suit’s other allegations included retaliation, fraud, violations of the state Fair Employment and Housing and Unruh Civil Rights acts, breach of contract, breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Margera sought millions of dollars in damages.
According to the suit, in March 2020, Paramount completed a contract with Margera for a fourth “Jackass” film and conditioned Margera’s participation and compensation on his adherence to a wellness agreement that Jonze and Knoxville had coerced him into signing while he was in a rehabilitation facility in 2019.
Margera signed the agreement after the pair told him that if he refused, he would be cut from all future installments of the “Jackass” films, the suit alleged. The wellness agreement obligated Margera to complete multiple daily drug tests at any hour of the day or night, the suit stated.
The defendants knew Margera took Adderall to treat his attention deficit disorder and that he had been on the medication for several years, but Paramount fired him without a chance to explain, according to the lawsuit. The suit also stated that Margera was the only “Jackass” star fired for taking medication that he was prescribed.
