Law&Crime Sidebar - Tyler Perry Fires Back at $260M Sexual Harassment Lawsuit

Episode Date: October 15, 2025

Actor, director and producer Tyler Perry is fighting back against Derek Dixon's $260 million sexual harassment lawsuit, calling the claims "false" and accusing Dixon of being greedy. Perry's legal team argues the case should be dismissed due to lack of personal jurisdiction in California and a clause in Dixon's contracts. Celebrity criminal defense attorney Bradford Cohen joins Law&Crime’s Jesse Weber to discuss the arguments and what it means for the high-profile case.PLEASE SUPPORT THE SHOW: If you’re ever injured in an accident, you can check out Morgan & Morgan. You can submit a claim in 8 clicks or less without having to leave your couch. To start your claim, visit: https://forthepeople.com/LCSidebarHOST:Jesse Weber: https://twitter.com/jessecordweberLAW&CRIME SIDEBAR PRODUCTION:YouTube Management - Bobby SzokeVideo Editing - Michael Deininger, Christina O'Shea, Alex Ciccarone, & Jay CruzScript Writing & Producing - Savannah Williamson & Juliana BattagliaGuest Booking - Alyssa Fisher & Diane KayeSocial Media Management - Vanessa BeinSTAY UP-TO-DATE WITH THE LAW&CRIME NETWORK:Watch Law&Crime Network on YouTubeTV: https://bit.ly/3td2e3yWhere To Watch Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3akxLK5Sign Up For Law&Crime's Daily Newsletter: https://bit.ly/LawandCrimeNewsletterRead Fascinating Articles From Law&Crime Network: https://bit.ly/3td2IqoLAW&CRIME NETWORK SOCIAL MEDIA:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lawandcrime/Twitter: https://twitter.com/LawCrimeNetworkFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/lawandcrimeTwitch: https://www.twitch.tv/lawandcrimenetworkTikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@lawandcrimeSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of this Law and Crimes series ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Tyler Perry has just fired back against Derek Dixon's sexual harassment claims in a big way and has made a number of arguments for why this whole case, this whole lawsuit, should be thrown out. Time to break it down with an attorney who has handled numerous celebrity legal cases, Bradford Cohen. Welcome to Sidebar. Presented by Law and Crime. I'm Jesse Weber.

All right, we have quite the response from Tyler Perry that we need to talk about. This is in response to a lawsuit that was filed against him by actor Derek Dixon, who accused Perry of essentially quid pro quo sexual harassment. This $260 million lawsuit. Now, the lawsuit that was filed out in California reads, this case arises from a sustained pattern of workplace sexual harassment. assault and retaliation perpetrated by Tyler Perry, a powerful media mogul against plaintiff Derek Dixon, a professional actor and screenwriter. Mr. Perry is an American actor, filmmaker, and playwright who has built one of the most successful careers in the film and television industry. Mr. Perry took his success in power and used his considerable

influence in the entertainment industry to create a coercive, sexually exploitative dynamic with Mr. Dixon, initially promising him career advancement and creative opportunities, such as producing his pilot and casting men his show, only to subject him to escalating sexual harassment, assault and battery, and professional retaliation when Mr. Dixon did not reciprocate Mr. Perry's unwanted advances. These events occurred while Mr. Dixon was employed as a series regular on the Tyler Perry show The Oval, and while Mr. Perry held direct control over his employment, compensation, and creative opportunities. Now, according to Dixon, he tried to essentially brush off Perry's advances and these

flirty text messages, even alleged groping, but claims that Perry would threaten to kill off his character on the show. Now, Perry, this is what we're going to be talking about, has responded in court documents saying that this suit is profoundly disappointing, cynical, that it is a lawsuit relying on, quote, Hollywood stereotypes and the bad acts of others. Quote, Dixon invents alleged assaults and encounters that never happened. His filings go on to say, quote, Mr. Perry never assaulted Dixon or committed any sexual battery.

He did not offer Dixon pay raises and shoot Dixon's television pilot script to threaten, coerce, or control Dixon. And it is notable that in his effort to exploit his friendship and professional relationship with Mr. Perry to obtain a $260 million payday, Dixon was forced to lie not only about Mr. Perry, but himself too, that the suit is about, quote, Dixon's greed and avarice, not Mr. Perry's alleged and non-existent harassment or abuse. It goes on to say by his actions and false accusations, it is clear that Dixon needs help, but he cannot find it in this court. And the filing goes on to state that Perry, quote,

looks forward to refuting each and every false accusation in court. Pretty strong words. And by the way, haven't even gotten into Perry's argument for why this case should be completely thrown out, which may work. I don't know. We'll discuss. Plus, we have more words, a response from Dixon's side. So let me bring in somebody who knows a thing or two about high profile celebrity cases. Defense attorney to the stars. Bradford, Cohen is once again with us. Bradford, so good to see you. You know, you're taking some time away, not only from your busy law practice, but your social media presence. You're blown up on the social media every five seconds. But thank you. you just heard me lay out some of the responses from Tyler Perry's side completely denying these

accusations. Just your thoughts on that. Let's start there. Well, I think that's the only way to do it. I mean, what else are you going to say is that it didn't happen? This is exaggerated. This is kind of a Harvey Weinstein-esque accusation that this is what Hollywood's about, but I didn't do it. It didn't happen like this. I was just a mentor. I was trying to help this guy. along and this is very cynical of him to file the lawsuit i mean that's the only response that you can really make in this type of case is to say it just didn't happen it's going to come down to the evidence it's going to come down to you know the texts and the what we call the receipts so we're going to have to see where this case goes but the denial in itself really doesn't mean much i mean i would

expect the denial obviously this is a story that we wanted to bring to you and we can do that not only because of the amazing support that we get from you all, but also from our incredible sponsor, Morgan and Morgan. This is America's largest injury law firm. This is a firm with over 1,000 attorneys. You know why they're so big because they win all the time. They have recovered over $25 billion for more than 500,000 clients. In fact, in the past few months, a client in Florida received $12 million after the insurance company offered just $350,000. Out in Pennsylvania, a client was awarded $26 million, that is 40 times the insurer's $650,000 offer. There's another client in Pennsylvania that received $29 million after being offered only $500,000.

And even if you think your case isn't worth millions of dollars, why not just start a claim and fight for what you deserve Morgan and Morgan? They make it so simple. You can start a claim from your phone in just eight clicks. So if you're injured, you can easily start a claim at for the people.com slash LC sidebar by clicking the link below or scanning the QR code on screen. And it raises an issue that we see in these kinds of cases because this is interesting because Perry seems to say that Dixon's allegations don't line up with his actions. What do I mean by that? In a motion to dismiss the claims, this motion to dismiss that was filed by Tyler Perry and his

companies, it says, quote, defendants deny Dixon's allegations. The complaint distorts reality and missteps. characterizes a platonic friendship that, as it turns out, Dixon ultimately cultivated for personal financial gains. So, for example, quote, in January 2020, Dixon attended a party at Mr. Perry's Georgia residence and spent the night in a guest bedroom. Dixon claims Mr. Perry tried to get into bed with him. Despite this, Dixon voluntarily came to Mr. Perry's home in Georgia two months later. In August 2020, during the COVID pandemic, cast members quarantined and temporarily resided at the Tyler Perry Studios campus in Georgia so they could film.

Dixon claims that Mr. Perry dropped off alcohol at his house and coerced him to imbibed during phone conversations with Mr. Perry. Dixon claims that later he went to Mr. Perry's trailer for drinks and that Mr. Perry made sexual advances and tried to grope plaintiff's buttocks. About a month later, Dixon voluntarily accompanied Mr. Perry and other cast members on a trip to the Bahamas where he claims Mr. Perry made sense. sexual advances towards him and allegedly tried to grope him. Now, Bradford, it seems to be that they're saying two things can't be true at once. This is a common thing we've seen,

right? You're claiming someone sexually assaulted you or harassed you, and yet you maintain company with them. You continue to, you know, have contact with them. But that's not necessarily negating that an assault or harassment could have occurred. Correct. So there's a couple things going on. Number one is this isn't really for a motion to dismiss. The lawyers put all this in to get it out in the press, right? So they don't have to make a statement. The press will pick up this motion to dismiss and say, wait a minute, look all these things that he did. And this is how it should go. And this is what he did. Oh, he sexually came on to him January 1st. And then January 10th, he's out at dinner with him. So this is a common theme. It's not really a motion to dismiss in terms of

like, oh, yeah, this is going to work for a motion to dismiss. It's a common theme. It didn't work out for Harvey Weinstein. And in Harvey Weinstein's case, it was females and a male. And they were saying, hey, listen, you know, well, she emailed me, you know, a week after she said that I sexually harassed her or that I sexually assaulted her. She emailed me saying, hey, I heard there's a part coming up and I'd love to try out for that part. So it's not unusual. What's unusual here is how society is going to look at this, where it's two men, as opposed to, to a woman and a man? Are they going to say that this man should have done something different than a woman in his position, which in the Harvey Weinstein case, the women in those positions

didn't do anything different. They never said, Harvey, you're a pig. Harvey, you know, I don't care what you're going to do to my career. I'm not going into your bedroom or, you know, I'm not going to go see you at three o'clock in the morning to read a, you know, a line for a movie. It's going to be interesting how the press kind of addresses this because it's a guy and a guy as opposed to a girl and a guy because we look at, you know, women differently that they, you know, they're susceptible to this type of thing in terms of the Harvey Weinstein case. So are we going to look at it the same way where a guy should have done something different? That's what's going to be so interesting in its case. The power dynamic is similar, right? If you're talking about this actor

versus this megastar, mega producer, content creator, studio executive, right, Tyler Perry. The power dynamic might be the same. And look, you're right. It's not a part of a motion to dismiss per se that a court's going to say, oh, because you made this argument, we're going to throw it out. But it does give us a preview of what may be argued at a trial, particularly if Dixon takes the stand. But here's what's interesting. This part, this is the response. And we're going to get a little bit more into the legal ramifications, the law.

legal argument in the motion to dismiss. But just staying on this point about whether we can believe Derek Dixon's claims, his attorney, Jonathan J. Delshod, issued a statement to People magazine in response to Perry's claims. This was on Monday, October 13th, saying, quote, Perry's filing provides no evidence to corroborate that the text messages in our complaint are fabricated. Our complaint includes text messages where Mr. Perry made explicit sexual remarks to Mr. questioned him about his sex life and dangled professional opportunities based on those interactions. No employer has the right to manipulate or threaten an employee's livelihood based on sexual expectations. We are certain that we will be able to prove to a jury that sexual

harassment, assault, and battery absolutely happened. I am convinced that Mr. Dixon is not the only one and that soon others will be sharing stories about Mr. Perry. My client is not intimidated by wealth influence of the celebrity status of Mr. Perry. Nobody is above the law. We are committed to holding Mr. Perry accountable to the full extent of the law. And that is an interesting point, right? Because if you look at the text messages that were part of Dixon's lawsuit, there is one, I'll give everybody an idea. There's one allegedly from Perry that says, quote, no straight man would be going on walks with you or cooking dinner for you unless they wanted to bleep you. I would bleep you.

Bradford, if those are the messages that are going to be presented, is this an open and shut case against Tyler Perry? Is there nothing more to deny? Odds that are associated with it, but I've gone to trial on cases that I thought were complete losers and I end up winning, you know, and winning big. So it just depends on the case. These texts, I think, if they are allowed into evidence, which I think they will be, I think they're admissions.

I don't see any kind of hearsay or any kind of way to keep them out. And if they do come in and they can establish they came from Tyler Perry, I think it's going to be a very difficult case just in terms of the sexual harassment on the texts. You know, if I work at IBM, if I work at Google, if I work at AOL, I'm showing my age, I guess, at AOL. But if I work at any of these places and my direct supervisor is sending me texts like this, It would be, you know, this would be settled in about a second. So I think that it's very dangerous for Mr. Perry. Listen, and I always say there's two ways to go about these cases, and we've talked about this before in the past, right?

There's either the first way is you settle these cases for economic damages. You think in your head, what is this going to cost me in the long run in terms of my reputation, in terms of my economic ability to earn money, all these different things come into a, settlement before a lawsuit is filed. Then there's the second wave of that is this is total BS. I'm going to fight it. And like my sign says, one war, one Cohen. You go to war and you don't give up and you don't, you know, settle the next day. You take depositions. You find out background on this guy. Has he filed lawsuits like this before? What is his proclivity in terms of his personal life? All of these different things that you go after and you saw Jay Z do this, very success.

when he was sued by Tony Busby and Tony Busby is still being sued by Jay-Z and he will be being sued for the next probably five years by Jay-Z because that is the only two ways to go about this case. This right now, where they are right now, I think is very dangerous with these texts coming out because these are not good for the reputation of Mr. Perry. And I don't doubt there will be other individuals that will start coming forward when kind of the damn breaks. A lot of interesting points that you mentioned, aside from the fact, AOL and maybe your dial-up connection that you still have. But no, put that to the side. Settlement, okay? Let me, that's a good point, okay, because I want to get into the main argument from Tyler Perry about why this case

should be thrown out in the motion to dismiss. But this was the very beginning of it, okay? It says, quote, on September 23rd, 24th and 25th, 2025, defendants counsel contacted plaintiffs Council in a good faith attempt to resolve the issues raised in this motion. The parties were unable to resolve the dispute, thus necessitating the filing of this motion. So Bradford, what does that tell you? They couldn't come to a meeting in the minds. They couldn't settle this? Yeah, I think that there was probably consideration to settle it. And generally when they say words like this, the numbers were off, right? So the guy might want, you know, $25 million. He might have been offered 500,000. So the numbers weren't right. I think that's what that is alleging. But to put that

in a motion generally is not acceptable. You can actually move to strike those things because settlement negotiations in themselves are not supposed to be part of any kind of motion you file unless you are enforcing that settlement. So if there was a settlement, now you're enforcing it, yes, you bring in the terms of the settlement. But to say, hey, we reached out, we tried to settle this. We had a discussion. That's like theater. And the courts usually don't allow that. Just is there any point of law where you have to tell that to the court before you can bring in a motion to dismiss? You like, hey, we've had good faith attempts to try to resolve this, but we can't get there. Only, only in terms of the motion to the smiths itself, not settlement negotiations.

And generally, it doesn't give that kind of detail, right? Usually it says, hey, the two parties conferred on this motion and we couldn't come to an agreement. That's it. You don't say, like, hey, I reached out the 23rd, 24, 25th, try to resolve this case, not just this motion. And we couldn't resolve the case. We couldn't come to a settlement agreement. So yes, you do have to, in most jurisdictions, you have to put in the motion that you had a good faith conferral that you tried to reach an agreement on that motion. So if it's a motion to dismiss, a summary judgment, a motion to compel, I reached out to the other side. They didn't agree to this motion to compel. That's why we're before the court. Now, I want to get into this motion to dismiss and see, does he have a legitimate argument to throw this entire case out? And I want to go through piece by piece, going to get a little granular, but it's very important to get granular here with the specific arguments. Basically, what we're talking about is Tyler Perry and his companies, because they're named as defendants too. They make a jurisdiction argument. They basically

say, Mr. Dixon, this case should be thrown out because you filed it in the wrong place. you shouldn't have filed this case in California. So this is what it says, quote, Dixon's theatrically pled complaint seems like something that belongs in Hollywood, but there's no legal basis under which a California court could exercise personal jurisdiction over the defendants. All defendants are Georgia citizens and do not transact business in California, much less any business that relates to this lawsuit. Plaintiff performed work for defendants only in Georgia.

All of the alleged incidents giving rise to Dixon's claims purported. took place outside of California. And all contracts between the parties contain Georgia choice of law and forum selection clauses. Dixon is forum shopping. The only yet irrelevant connection between this dispute in California is that Dixon moved there in 2023 over a year after the last incident of alleged assault. Dixon cannot come close to meeting his burden of proving personal jurisdiction exists over any defendant because this case involves inexcusable forum shopping, the court should dismiss it. Alternatively, the case should be transferred to the appropriate forum, the U.S. District

Court for the Northern District of Georgia. And I'm going to get into that. But Bradford, as we get more into the specifics of this argument, how often would a case be thrown out on jurisdictional grounds? And by the way, would an attorney who files a lawsuit know that when they say, look, we can't file in California. There's no basis here. So how, I mean, how often would that actually happen?

Right. There's a couple things going on. Sometimes I've gotten cases dismissed on jurisdictional issues, venue issues. If there's a contract that provides for venue or jurisdiction, sometimes that happens. Also, if it's removed to federal court because of the parties are in two different jurisdictions, sometimes it'll be removed to federal court from a state court that I will actually ask the court to remove it because I think that it would be more favorable in a federal court and that it would be more appropriate. So they have a good argument. What you have to look at is, does Tyler Perry own any

property in California? Does he have any ties to California? His company, do they have any ties to California? I would imagine his company does. I don't know if Tyler Perry himself still owns any property in California or still has any jurisdiction in California whatsoever. So it's a decent argument, it's not, you know, put your feather in your cap and this case is going to go away. Obviously, they want to bring it in Georgia because Tyler Perry probably will find a jury in Georgia more favorable than a jury in Hollywood, California, where, you know, people are used to seeing kind of famous people sue each other and they don't really care about it as opposed to Georgia. When you have a Georgia jury sitting there and you're seeing Tyler Perry there, you might be

taken aback for a moment and be like, hey, it's Tyler Perry. of famous. This is crazy. So it is a good, I think it's a good strategic move, whether or not the court grants it would be dependent on the contracts, obviously, that he's signed. But don't forget, this is outside of those contracts. He's not suing for a breach of contract. He's suing because it is a sexual harassment case. So then you have to have to look at the ties to California, why they file this lawsuit in California. And it really doesn't seem like it's jury, you know, it's forum shopping to me. But I think that a California court would be more appropriate for this type of case for the plaintiff than Georgia would.

It'll be, he'll find it more favorable in California. That's my guess. I appreciate making that point. I think it's an important point to make about why Georgia could be favorable. I'm so happy to have you because I want to go through Tyler Perry's arguments a little. bit more specifically, you tell me what you think of them, okay? So the first argument for why the claims should be dismissed is because the court lacks personal jurisdiction over the defendants. And forever about there, you can exercise jurisdiction over a defendant who doesn't reside

in the state if they have what is known in the law as, quote, minimum contacts with the state. And in the law, to exercise personal jurisdiction over a defendant, there is general and there is specific jurisdiction. I feel like back in law school, but general jurisdiction is saying, okay, the defendant has continuous and systematic contacts with the state. Specific jurisdiction is saying the lawsuit itself, the allegations, they arise out of the defendant's activities within a state. Okay, so first, Perry argues there's no general jurisdiction. Tyler Perry, they say, is a Georgia resident. He pays taxes there. His primary home is there. His studio is there, he votes there, and just because he owns property in California, that's not

enough. That Dixon doesn't really explain what Perry's alleged extensive business connections or activities are in the state of California. And as far as Perry's companies that are named as defendants in the lawsuit, they say they're headquartered in Georgia. They don't operate in California. And moreover, they make the argument that this is not an outlier. This is not an exceptional case where these company's activities are so continuous or systematic that they are basically at home in California. There's no offices in California. They don't own property or maintain bank accounts in California. They're not licensed to do business in California. There's no registered agent in California. Now, Bradford, just taking all of that is true. And I don't know

if, you know, Mr. Dixon's going to be fighting that and saying, no, I can show that they really do have context there. As far as the court not having general personal jurisdiction over the defendants, is that a good argument? I think if you take everything is true, and I don't know if everything is true, I think it's a decent argument. The problem is, is that I think Mr. Perry still owns property in California that may be subject him to jurisdiction of California. I think the companies, they would have to argue that the companies don't do business in California, which I find hard to believe because I think, you know, he's got certain deals with certain, you know, if you made a deal with Netflix, if you made a deal with Hulu, any of these companies that deal

that do business in California, if his businesses dealt with them, if his businesses had relations with them, I think that it becomes a more difficult argument. Now, if everything is taken as true that you just said, I think it's a decent argument for Perry, but I don't know with everything is actually true. What I know of is that Perry still owns some property in California, and I think the corporations still do business with studios out in California. So I think that's kind of where this is going to happen, and it's going to be a type of hearing that's going to have evidence presented

as to what is the jurisdiction, and each side is going to be able. It's going to be like a mini trial if it's done correctly. So that was the general jurisdiction argument. Now, saying the court doesn't believe that, now we go into specific personal jurisdiction, right? And this is another interesting argument because Perry argues, you know what, there's no specific personal jurisdiction over me or my companies because the dispute in question, what this lawsuit is all about, none of that relates to our contacts in California. So it says, quote, Dixon alleges he met Mr. Perry in Georgia, while Dixon. was living in Georgia and working for a Georgia-based event company. Dixon auditioned for and secured a role in a television series produced by and action, a Georgia LLC, that was

filmed in Georgia. Dixon accepted a recurring acting role in another series that was filmed exclusively in Georgia. Dixon stayed on set at Tyler Perry Studios in Georgia when COVID-19 delayed production. Dixon wrote a script for a television series and executed a purchase agreement for the pilot episode while he lived in Georgia. Dixon filmed the pilot episode for that series in Georgia. Dixon accepted a role in a TPS movie that was filmed in Georgia. And moreover, Perry argues that Dixon's decision to relocate to California in January 2023, that doesn't matter because that was three years after he began working for Perry's productions and over a year after the last alleged assault by Tyler Perry. So another way to look at it, they argue, is that

Dixon's claims they don't arise out of the defendant's activities in California. He wasn't injured in California or that the defendants aim their conduct at him in California. And Perry says litigating this in California, that would provide an undue burden on him. Again, he's from Georgia. California itself has no interest in deciding this case. That's the argument that it would be more efficient to handle it in Georgia because all the defendants and all the witnesses are there. Bradford, your take on that argument. So specific jurisdiction, I think, is a loser for the plaintiff because everything occurred in Georgia. I think if you look at specific jurisdiction, I think it's a different question here.

And, you know, the fact that the undue burden issue is kind of, I don't even look at that argument, really. That it's, oh, it's in California and these guys are from Georgia. It's an undue burden and it's a judicial economy. All those kind of arguments kind of fall by the wayside. The better argument on specific jurisdiction is that everything that, happened in Georgia. Everything that possibly could have alleged happened in Georgia. You know, the filming happened in Georgia. The employment happened in Georgia. So all of those things is is way more relevant than the, oh, it's an undue burden. But it's a much, much, much

stronger argument on the specific. But don't forget, they can look at general or specific. But the specific, I think that he has a very good argument on specific jurisdiction. General jurisdiction, I think that the court is going to have to kind of jump through some hoops, and they're going to have to really look at a lot of evidence that's provided to see if there's general jurisdiction. But then also, don't forget, he could try and go to federal court in California because there's diversity of all of the individuals. He lives in California and everyone else lives in Georgia, and he's going to say they still have some ties to California with, you know, property and dealings and business dealings. And a federal court may look

at that a lot more favorable to the plaintiff than a state court, especially when you're suing for $260 million. I mean, you get that threshold to get into that court. Okay, this is something you mentioned before. I think it's another interesting argument that Perry makes. He says, look at what Dixon signed when he started working for us. Quote, when he signed his performer agreements, plaintiff agreed that, quote, if a dispute or portion thereof or any claim for a particular form of relief not otherwise precluded by any other provision of this agreement, they may not be arbitrated pursuant to applicable state or federal. law may be heard only in a court of competent jurisdiction of Fulton County applying Georgia law

without regard to its choice of law's principles. Quote, Dixon cannot meet the heavy burden of showing that the clauses are unreasonable or unjust or procured through fraud. Now, Bradford, going back to what you said, you know, some would say, oh, my gosh, all right, says it in the contract, there you go, Georgia law, Georgia courts. But you said, you know, what he's suing for is outside the contract. So how much do you think that argument's strong? I personally think it's a pretty good argument to say it's, you know, sexual harassment

is not anticipated when you sign an employment agreement. And I made that argument in several cases. And some of them I was successful. And I'll be honest with you, one of them I wasn't. But, you know, in terms of signing that contract and agreeing to the terms of the contract, is it anticipatory that you would be sexually harassed. And that's what is going to be. applicable, you know, an arbitration or something like that. There's no specific language to that.

And a lot of companies want that. A lot of companies want an arbitration because it keeps it quiet when, you know, the president of a company sexually harasses some employee. You want to try and keep that quiet. So they put in arbitration clauses specifically for that point. But a lot of times those arbitration clauses are written so poorly, like this one seems to be so overly broad that I don't know if it will be applicable to a sexual harassment case or an or you know an environment with with sexual harassment at a workplace so I think there's a lot going on I think that you know this opens the door really too is a you know there could be federal investigations into this allegation as well I don't know if it would be considered a civil or

federal crime because I don't know all the allegations that are going to be made in here. But like I said, this opens the dam. You know, all of a sudden, the crack is there. And I think that a lot is going to flow from this. And you saw that in the Sean Combs case. I mean, take it, take it for what it is. The allegations are different. But you saw it in the Sean Combs case where a civil case was filed.

And what flowed from that was a lot more cases that came up, both criminal and civil. You saw that in the same thing with Harvey, Weinstein. I think depending on how this case goes, you could see that same thing. In this case, if there's a lot more victims that come forward, and this is a pattern that Mr. Perry has, I think that you're, you know, he's in for a rough ride. And before I let you go, I want to ask you what you think the court's going to do here, because obviously one alternative, one option is they could dismiss all the claims. They agree with Tyler Perry and say, this shouldn't be filed in California court. Now, the reason I say that's maybe one option, curious or thought.

The other option is Tyler Perry provides an alternative to throwing the whole case out. Transfer it from California to Georgia. You mentioned before about what the advantages might be in Georgia for Tyler Perry. And again, he makes the argument because that's where it should have been brought. They're better equipped at dealing with Georgia law. He writes, the purported actions occurred outside of California. Valid contractual choice of law provisions exist requiring Georgia law, and a Georgia court will be more familiar with Georgia law. Georgia law also applies to Dixon's state law tort claim.

claims because California courts apply the laws of the state where the tort is committed. So Bradford, before I let you go, what do you think a court's going to do here? Do you think they're going to side with Tyler Perry and say, either we're dismissing this whole case or Georgia, it's coming to you? I'm going to give you the lawyer answer. I don't know all of the facts that are going to come out about the jurisdictional clause, but I will tell you, I don't think the court will just transfer it to the Northern District of Georgia, I think they will dismiss it without prejudice if they're going to dismiss

and allow them to refile in Georgia. It's very unlikely that courts transfer to other states. It does happen, but usually federal court to federal court sometimes state to federal court pretty much very, very infrequently, almost never. But I don't think that this court would do that is just transfer it to the Northern District of Georgia. I think they would either dismiss it outright and allow them to file in Georgia, dismiss it without prejudice based on jurisdictional clause, or they will find that they have significant or at least minimal ties to California to be able to sue them in California after some sort of hearing or an evidentiary motion. So the court may say, hey, give me all your evidence to show that they do have these ties

to California and we will take it from there. You know, there's all these famous cases, the Brown Shoe Company. We're going to get into all these minutia about jurisdictional clauses, I think, and the court will really take a good look at it. Generally speaking, they have hearings on it, but some courts will rule on the documents that you provide them. Bradford Cohen, love having you on. Thank you so much for breaking it down for us so we can all understand what's happening here, what to expect.

Again, thanks so much for taking the time. Thanks for having me. And that is all we have for you right now here on Sidebar. everybody. Thank you so much for joining us. And as always, please subscribe on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you should get your podcasts. You can follow me on X or Instagram. I'm Jesse Weber. I'll see you next time. in the Wondery app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.