A recent New York jury ruling awarded $1.26 million to Robert De Niro‘s former assistant following a lawsuit against De Niro’s loan-out company, Canal Productions. The lawsuit was based on gender discrimination and retaliation, excluding any personal liability on De Niro’s part.
Furthermore, the jury dismissed the actor’s counterclaim alleging that she had stolen 5 million frequent flyer miles from the company.
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The jurors reached the decision after approximately four hours of deliberations over a single day. Notably, De Niro was not present in the courtroom when the verdict was announced.
The trial’s focus was on the fallout after Graham Chase Robinson, an employee of De Niro’s Canal Productions, left the company. It involved allegations of De Niro subjecting her to vulgar comments and assigning her domestic tasks, despite her executive title. The accusations also included workplace mistreatment and discrimination based on gender.
Robinson filed her own lawsuit two months later, accusing the actor of gender discrimination and retaliation. When De Niro testified on Oct. 31, he dismissed the case as “nonsense” and absurd.
Chen testified that there was something wrong with Robinson. She mentioned that Robinson, who allegedly wouldn’t look her in the face, would move furniture and prune their trees without permission. As a result, Chen demanded De Niro find a replacement for Robinson and expressed her displeasure with having Robinson around the house.
The legal dispute intensified when De Niro resisted a proposal from Robinson for her to sign a release. David Sanford, a lawyer for Robinson, expressed his satisfaction with the jury’s verdict, stating “We are delighted that the jury saw what we saw and returned a verdict in Chase Robinson’s favor against Robert De Niro’s company, Canal Productions.”
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