LOS ANGELES – An agreement was reached to settle a lawsuit alleging that James Franco had intimidated students at an acting and film school he founded into gratuitous and exploitative sexual situations.
A state report jointly filed by the two sides in the Los Angeles Superior Court stated that a settlement of the class action process introduced by former students at the now defunct school, Studio 4, has been resolved, although elements of the process may continue. The document was filed on February 11, but the settlement has not been reported before.
Actresses and former students Sarah Tither-Kaplan and Toni Gaal, who first filed the lawsuit in 2019, have agreed to drop individual claims under the agreement, according to the court file. Their trial said Franco pushed his students to play in increasingly explicit sex scenes in the room in an “orgy-type setting” that far exceeded what was acceptable on Hollywood movie sets.
He claimed that Franco “sought to create a conduit for young women who were subjected to his personal and professional sexual exploitation in the name of education” and that students were led to believe that the roles in Franco’s films would be available to those who went .
The lawsuits stated that the incidents occurred in a master class on sex scenes that Franco taught at Studio 4, which opened in 2014 and closed in 2017.
The two sides had been discussing a settlement for several months, and the progress of the proceedings was interrupted while they were talking. Emails to several lawyers for both parties requesting comments on the agreement and more details about the terms were not returned immediately.
In a previous court case, Franco’s lawyers, while praising the #MeToo movement that helped inspire the lawsuit, called his statements “false and inflammatory, without legal basis and brought as a class action with the obvious goal of attracting as much publicity as possible – hungry applicants. “They emphasized that Tither-Kaplan had previously expressed his gratitude for the opportunity to work with Franco.
The lawsuit also names Franco Rabbit Bandini’s production company and its partners, including Vince Jolivette and Jay Davis, as defendants.
The allegations of sexual exploitation of other plaintiffs in the class action will be rejected without prejudice, which means that they can be re-filed, according to the joint situation report.
The allegations of fraud brought by these applicants will be “subject to limited release”, the document states, without further details or explanations.
The document does not disclose how much money could be involved in the agreement, which the parties say they will submit to the court for preliminary approval by March 15.
Prior to the trial, Tither-Kaplan aired allegations of sexual conduct against Franco along with other women in the Los Angeles Times after Franco won a Golden Globe Award for “The Disaster Artist” in early 2018, when the wave of the #MeToo movement was sweeping Hollywood.
In a later interview with The Colate Show with Stephen Colbert, Franco called inaccurate stories of sexual misconduct about him, but said, “If I did something wrong, I’ll fix it. Must.”
Franco, 42, best known for starring in comedies with Seth Rogen, has generally kept a low profile, as the allegations came at an extremely productive time, culminating in the acclaimed ” artist in case of disaster ”.