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The public won’t get to see what’s going to go down in the $4 million battle between Love Is Blind contestant Renee Poche and producers Delirium and Netflix.
“The motion to compel arbitration is granted as to Defendants Delirium TV, LLC and Netflix, Inc.,” ruled LA Superior Court Judge Bruce G. Iwasaki today after a downtown hearing. “This matter is stayed pending the outcome of arbitration. The motion for a preliminary injunction is denied in its entirety.”
“The parties have clearly agreed to delegate the Court’s responsibility to determine arbitrability to the arbitrator to decide,” the judge added of the ‘clear and unmistakable” language in Poche’s nondisclosure agreement. “The matter is delegated to the arbitrator to decide all the substantive issues raised by Plaintiff’s opposition to arbitration.”
In the sometimes contentious hearing itself, Judge Iwasaki put it even more bluntly: “The court is stuck with the contract. That’s the contract.”
Back in January, LiB Season 5 participant Poche took Delirium and Netflix to court to put the brakes on the multi-million arbitration action they took against her in November 2023 over violations of the NDA she signed as a part of the reality romance series.
Similar to allegations made by another LiB contestant Tran Dang in her own legal move, Poche laid out what really was going down on the reality show. Though she was cut from appearing on the fifth season, veterinarian Poche said she was being punished by the production company and the streamer for “some limited public remarks about her distressing time on the Program, including the terrifying experiences she had with Wall.”
Wall being fellow Season 5 contestant Carter Wall, a construction worker and fitness enthusiast that Poche was briefly engaged to. In her filing of earlier this year from those reality TV fighting attorneys Bryan Freedman and Mark Geragos, Poche called Wall a “walking red flag” and claimed producers willfully overlooked his “erratic and alarming behavior and emotional instability.”
Delirium and Netflix said no and took their arbitration action last fall under the clauses of Poche’s NDA. Poche contends that the Agreement is itself illegal and unenforceable and brings this action to vindicate her legal rights under California law,” replied Freedman and Geragos on January 2.
Poche wanted her NDA rendered null and void – which would have been an 9.5 magnitude earthquake in the unscripted world if the judge had granted it.
Clearly Judge Iwasaki did not grant that request.
But, this being a Hollywood legal dust-up, according to one of Poche’s lawyers, this matter is far from over.
“We don’t agree that arbitration is the right forum and will appeal that decision, but Renee will get her day of justice no matter what venue controls,” Freedman told Deadline this morning after the ruling came down. “
Whether in arbitration, in a court of law or even in the court of public opinion, Delirium and Netflix trying to silence a young woman by suing her for 4 million dollars will never be upheld as legally proper,” said the attorney, who has made a cottage industry of late out of bringing the dark underbelly of reality TV into the light. “Silencing victims in the workplace has repeatedly been found to be unconscionable. It feels good to know we are on the right side of history here.”
On the other hand, Delirium’s attorneys Larry Iser and Allen Secretov were very happy with the way things went this morning in DTLA:
We are very pleased with the results of today’s hearing, which confirms that Delirium acted properly in filing its arbitration against Ms. Poche in response to her violations of her confidentiality and publicity obligations. Arbitration is the procedure that is spelled out in the agreement Ms. Poche signed when she applied to participate in “Love is Blind.” But, rather than defend against Delirium’s claims in arbitration, Ms. Poche and her lawyers chose to file a headline-grabbing Complaint in Court against Delirium and Netflix with a morass of arguments challenging the enforceability of the agreement she signed. Ms. Poche and her lawyers twice sought—unsuccessfully—to enjoin Delirium from pursuing its arbitration against Ms. Poche, and also sought—unsuccessfully—to enjoin all of Delirium and Netflix’s employment and participant agreements.
The Kinsella Holley Iser Kump Steinsapir lawyers added:
Delirium did not want to litigate with Ms. Poche. Rather, as we demonstrated to the court, before the arbitration was filed, Ms. Poche was asked to stop her unauthorized interviews and to promptly mediate the dispute, and she was repeatedly warned, by production personnel as well as by Delirium’s lawyers, that her continued breaches of the participant agreement would result in Delirium filing arbitration. Rather than abide by her contract, heed these warnings, or participate in mediation, Ms. Poche continued to breach. Delirium will now proceed as it originally intended, and address its claims against Ms. Poche in arbitration.
All six seasons of the Nick and Vanessa Lachey hosted Love is Blind are on Netflix
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