UPDATE: As of 3:30 pm an appeal has already been filed.
The provocative headlines you’ll see on the Internet this weekend will state that Jennifer Lopez’s ex-husband has won a court battle allowing him to release an intimate videotape featuring himself and the Grammy-winning mega-star. That’s not it at all. What really happened is much less salacious and a lot more significant. What you won’t read about is the unbelievably arrogant and unconstitutional lengths Lopez’ attorneys went to to not just squelch her ex but ANYBODY from saying ANYTHING derogatory about her. Seriously: ANYBODY. Including you.
It is a story of the arrogance of power within Hollywood, and how a team of Los Angeles lawyers including Big Hollywood’s own Kurt Schlichter, and a judge who understands the law and American values, helped stop it.
Ojani Noa came to the United States from Cuba with nothing except good looks and ambition – a classic American story. He met and fell in love with a rising star, Jennifer Lopez, and for a time they were married. But happy endings are rarer in Hollywood than monogamy in the Kennedy compound; their divorce turned bitter and the newly-minted mega-star turned the full force of her Hollywood big gun lawyers on Noa.
Noa, who at one time was once represented by a man who later served time for impersonating a lawyer, was hit with an injunction that prevented him from taking a number of actions regarding Jennifer Lopez, including speaking about her in a derogatory fashion. Except the restraining order was not just focused on Noa – by its own terms, this order (which was drafted by Lopez’s high-priced counsel at Lavely & Singer, recently in the news as the sharks retained by Charlie Sheen), applied to every person with knowledge of it.
It was the Hollywood celebrity dream order – an injunction that puts anyone at risk of being hauled into court for contempt should they speak words that displease a movie star.
It was also clearly unconstitutional.
A woman named Claudia Vazquez, who had made a name for herself in Hollywood as a rising producer, saw that the story of Noa and Lopez was more than just a celebrity tale but a fascinating (and potentially hilarious) meditation on the nature of celebrity as well as a celebration of the American dream. Vazquez went forward with her own dream and attempted to pitch the story as a film project around Hollywood. However, no one would touch the project after Lopez and her lawyers asserted that she was barred by injunctions issued against Noa. She became, as she put it, “radioactive.”
She enlisted the help of ace attorneys Cris Armenta and Credence Sol, who along with Schlichter, fought back. They sought to enjoin Lopez from enforcing the Noa injunctions against Vazquez; Lopez responded with a motion to dismiss the entire lawsuit and seek a huge attorneys fees award against this single mother.
After a marathon hearing, Judge Ann Jones of the Los Angeles Superior Court took the matter under submission and issued her 16-page ruling on May 26th. It is a stirring repudiation of the notion that the powerful can control the speech of regular people. She noted that the language originally written and enforced in the injunction was unconstitutional on its face. She rejected Lopez’s attempts to dismiss the case, finding that Vazquez had demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits. The Judge then enjoined Lopez from enforcing the Noa injunctions against Vazquez. The case will proceed to trial, with Jennifer Lopez summoned to give her videotaped deposition testimony under oath in Santa Monica on June 16th. In the meantime, Vazquez can make her movie. The little guy, for once, has won.
Only in Hollywood could the idea that the First Amendment came with a special exception for pop singers be even considered. Fortunately, there are still Americans willing to fight for their rights, lawyers who will stand with them, and judges that understand that the Constitution means what it says. Now the rest of us mere mortals can voice our opinions about the dancer turned pop star turned film star turned Puff Daddy squeeze turned American Idol judge without wondering if our next stop is the county jail.
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