Kevin Spacey’s ‘House of Cards’ Legal Battle Takes New Turn

Winston Cho
·4 min read
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Kevin Spacey has struck a deal with MRC, the production company behind House of Cards, to slash a $31 million judgment against him for on-set sexual misconduct involving young crewmembers to $1 million, according to court documents. In return, Spacey will back arguments from MRC in a legal battle against its insurer that he was written out of the show because he was too sick to return, which would trigger its insurance policy.

The settlement, which was first reported by Puck, opens a new front in labyrinthine litigation over recovering money for increased expenses and lost revenue tied to MRC shortening and rewriting the final season of House of Cards as a result of Spacey’s exit. With the deal, MRC is looking to collect on a $150 million policy from Fireman’s Fund Insurance, as well as punitive damages for fraudulently denying its claim.

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In 2021, an arbitrator ruled that Spacey must pay MRC nearly $31 million for sexual misconduct behind the scenes of the show. It was found that the actor breached his contract by violating anti-harassment policies, causing the sixth season to be shortened from 13 to eight episodes, and that he was not entitled to be paid for the remainder of his contract.

Spacey appealed the decision but agreed in December to pause it for one year after reaching a deal with MRC, according to court filings. After paying $1 million of the judgement, which has since grown to $36.5 million with interest, Spacey and his production houses will have the rest of the debt canceled, per the documents. In exchange, he will testify on whether he could have resumed his role in the political series and produce medical records on his condition at the time.

The testimony is intended to bolster claims from MRC against Fireman’s Fund that Spacey was unavailable to shoot the final season of House of Cards because he was too sick to perform, which would trigger its hefty insurance policy. The company pointed to the actor checking into The Meadows, a facility known for treating sex addiction.

In November, before the agreement with Spacey was reached, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Mark Epstein dismissed the MRC suit, which was filed in 2022. He found that MRC’s policies “do not insure against this particular risk” and that neither side contemplated “coverage for this sort of thing.”

But the court allowed MRC one more chance to amend its complaint to clarify Spacey’s illness and how it prevented him from returning to the series. In December, the company teamed up with the actor, who had previously resisted turning over his medical records to any party, and added allegations to its suit that his “unavailability” while getting treatment was the reason it removed him from the show and rewrote it without his character.

Fireman’s Fund has now moved for the court to disregard the new claims, stressing MRC’s about-face over the cause of Spacey’s departure from the series, according to a court document filed Monday. Per the filing, it claimed that MRC’s allegation that Spacey’s illness was the cause of its financial losses tied to House of Cards is “directly contradicted by their previous insistence that it was not.”

The insurer alleged in its Monday filing that MRC had, in the arbitration with Spacey, previously explicitly denied that his removal from the series was based on his unavailability. It said that his removal was due to Netflix’s refusal to air the series with him in it, forcing MRC to indefinitely suspend the actor.

On Nov. 3, 2017, Netflix announced that it would not release any new House of Cards episodes that featured Spacey. The decision was allegedly made the night before, with the streamer calling it a “brand” decision regardless of whether the claims were true.

In a deposition cited in the Fireman Fund’s court filing, Netflix’s former head of original content strategy Cynthia Holland allegedly said, “We had an obligation to protect our reputation” and that the concern was “bad press.”

Fireman’s Fund also cited a 2017 email from Todd Rubenstein, a lawyer representing the actor, allegedly stating that his client “would be excited to complete the sixth season and awaits notice of his start date,” per court filings. MRC allegedly responded, “Under the circumstances, Kevin Spacey is suspended pending a further investigation.”

According to the court documents, Bryan Freedman, another lawyer for Spacey, allegedly sent MRC a letter shortly after Netflix’s announcement denying that the actor was ill.

“For your edification, Mr. Spacey has no known ‘illness’ that has not been disclosed,” he reportedly wrote. “Your continued publication of false information about him being ‘ill’ takes inappropriate liberties with the public statement that we did release; is disparaging, defamatory and violates his privacy rights.”

Last month, a lawyer for the insurer allegedly accused MRC of “manufacturing a fraudulent insurance claim,” according to the same court filings from Fireman’s Fund.

A trial is tentatively set to start in June.

Lawyers for Spacey, MRC and Fireman’s Fund did not respond to requests for comment.

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