1 day ago
2
Vin Diesel got a court to throw out four employment discrimination claims against him on Tuesday, but still faces allegations of sexual battery and wrongful termination brought by a former assistant.
The assistant, Asta Jonasson, sued Diesel in 2023, alleging that he had pinned her against a wall in a hotel suite and masturbated in front of her. The incident allegedly occurred in 2010, which would ordinarily put it beyond the statute of limitations.
But in 2023, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed the Sexual Abuse and Cover Up Accountability Act, which revived certain expired claims of sexual assault dating back to 2009.
However, in order to bring a lawsuit under the state Fair Employment and Housing Act, a plaintiff must first file an administrative complaint with the state Civil Rights Department.
In a ruling on Tuesday, Judge Daniel M. Crowley held that the law extending the statute of limitations did not extend the deadline to file an administrative complaint, which in 2010 was one year. Therefore, he found that the four claims under FEHA were barred by the statute of limitations.
“Plaintiff’s FEHA claims are time-barred because she failed to timely exhaust her administrative remedies by filing a CRD complaint within one year of the alleged adverse action, a jurisdictional requirement for a FEHA lawsuit,” the judge wrote.
Jonasson also filed claims of retaliation, wrongful termination, sexual battery, negligent supervision and retention and infliction of emotional distress. None of those allegations carries a requirement to file an administrative complaint, and so they were untouched by the judge’s order.
Diesel’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, adamantly denied the claims when they were first filed.
“There is clear evidence which completely refutes these outlandish allegations,” he said at the time.
English (US) ·