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‘Rust’ prop master wants out of Alec Baldwin countersuit
The Industry Dec 16, 2022
Alec Baldwin. | Photo courtesy of Gage Skidmore/Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)
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The prop master in the film “Rust,” a co-defendant in Alec Baldwin’s countersuit regarding the deadly shooting on the set of the Western genre that killed cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, wants to be dismissed from the actor’s case on jurisdictional grounds.
Baldwin’s countersuit for negligence and indemnity against prop master Sarah Zachry and three others was filed Nov. 14 in Los Angeles Superior Court and stems from an underlying complaint in which script supervisor Mamie Mitchell named Baldwin, 64, and the others as defendants. Baldwin alleges that crew members negligently put live ammunition in the gun that he was holding when it discharged during rehearsal on Oct. 21, 2021, killing the 42-year-old Hutchins and wounding director Joel Souza, now 49.
Also named in Baldwin’s countersuit are armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, first assistant director Dave Halls and prop supplier Seth Kenney.
In their court papers brought filed Thursday with Judge Michael E. Whitaker, Zachry’s lawyers maintain that their client is a New Mexico resident since birth and is not subject to the personal jurisdiction of the California courts. Although she is named as a defendant in Mitchell’s suit, Zachry has never been served in that case, according to Zachry’s attorneys’ court papers.
“Zachry has never been a resident of California, nor has she ever lived or worked in California,” Zachry’s lawyers state in their court papers. “Ms. Zachary has not traveled to California for any purpose related to her hiring or work on the ‘Rust’ production. The last time that Ms. Zachary visited California was in 2019 and she has not returned to the state at any time since then.”
All lawsuits and related actions against Zachry filed in California by any party involved in “Rust” are “objectively unreasonable if not frivolous and malicious,” Zachry’s lawyers state in their court papers. “As such, being hailed from New Mexico into Los Angeles County, to defend the underlying complaint and the Baldwin (countersuit), were not reasonably foreseeable under applicable constitutional standards.”
A hearing on Zachry’s motion to quash is scheduled March 7.
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