Kevin Spacey Settles ‘House of Cards’ Harassment Arbitration for $1 Million
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Kevin Spacey will pay $1 million to the production company behind House of Cards to settle an arbitration case stemming from sexual misconduct claims against the actor, Variety reports.
Spacey will pay the $1 million fee in installments to the production company, Media Rights Capital (MRC), over several years. It’s a significantly smaller sum than the $31 million the actor was originally ordered to pay in 2021 for breaching his contract after an arbitrator found claims that he’d sexually harassed young crew members on the show credible.
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Spacey was fired from House of Cards before its final season in 2017 amid numerous sexual misconduct allegations. He’s denied the allegations against him (and retained a surreal attachment to his character on the show, Frank Underwood).
Spacey did try to overturn the initial $31 million judgment but lost that effort in 2022. The judge overseeing that appeal said that Spacey failed to demonstrate “that this is even a close case” or that “the damages award was so utterly irrational that it amounts to an arbitrary remaking of the parties’ contracts.”
The $31 million judgment was essentially meant to cover the losses MRC incurred after scrapping the parts of the final season it had filmed with Spacey and starting over. In agreeing upon the new $1 million fee, MRC and Spacey have reportedly agreed to work together to get back the other $30 million from MRC’s insurance company.
That, however, has been an uphill battle for MRC. In 2022, the company sued Fireman’s Fund and Lloyd’s of London, claiming their cast insurance policies covered the Spacey situation. These policies typically cover actors in case severe illnesses make them unable to work; MRC has argued that Spacey’s decision to check himself into an Arizona facility for sex addiction treatment after the allegations against him emerged falls under that umbrella.
But the production company initially found little success in court, with a judge twice tossing MRC’s suits, ruling that the insurance policies “were not meant to cover this sort of claim.” During its initial attempts, MRC notably did not have Spacey’s cooperation, with the actor fighting attempts to subpoena is medical records.
As part of the new $1 million deal in the arbitration case, Spacey has agreed to testify in the insurance case, hand over his medical records, and be examined by doctors from both sides. MRC filed a new motion against Fireman’s Fund last month (their case against Lloyd’s of London has been totally thrown out).
Ed. Note: Rolling Stone’s parent company, PMC, has a joint venture with MRC.
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