CHICAGO (Legal Newsline) - The man who filed a lawsuit because actress Ana de Armas' scenes were cut from the movie Yesterday has lost his case.
In an Oct. 11 order, Chicago federal judge Lindsay Jenkins tossed the lawsuit of Ilya Khait, who was given the chance to file a second amended complaint but didn't. Jenkins entered judgment for defendant Comcast on Nov. 8.
The case concerns de Armas' appearance in a trailer for the movie Yesterday, which was released by Comcast's Universal Studios in 2019. Plaintiff Khait says he saw de Armas in a trailer but was disappointed to find out de Armas' scenes were cut from the final version of the film.
He claimed the trailers showed de Armas as "having a significant role" in the film. Attorney Spencer Sheehan filed the complaint, seeking monetary relief, in March in Chicago federal court.
The lawsuit, however, alleged no alleged fraud by Comcast, Jenkins wrote. He added that Khait and Sheehan did not make an argument for piercing the corporate veil to sue Comcast over the actions of its subsidiary, Universal.
"Instead, he argues that veil-piercing is irrelevant because Comcast wholly owns Universal, 'and it is virtually self-evident that a subsidiary acts on behalf of, and thus conducts the affairs of, its parent corporation,'" Jenkins wrote.
The two cases cited by the plaintiff involved the necessary level of detail for allegations about the relationship between a parent and subsidiary for RICO liability, and the other concerned "a federal statute that does not incorporate state veil-piercing law," Jenkins wrote.
"Khait alleges no basis for holding Comcast liable other than its ownership of Universal, so his claims fail," Jenkins added.
Further, the allegations were not specific enough to meet the pleading standard for fraud claims, Jenkins wrote.
"(I)t fails to allege when and by what medium - or even whether - Khait himself saw the trailer, which could be important," the order says.
"The alleged deception is promoting de Armas as having a key role in Yesterday despite her not appearing in the released film, so a necessary component of that deception is Comcast's knowledge that de Armas would not appear in the film.
"It could not be deceptive, for example, to run a trailer featuring de Armas in 2018 if the decision to cut her from the film was not made until 2019."
The suit says Comcast falsely use de Armas' 'star buzz' in its marketing of the film to give moviegoers the expectation that she would be in the movie, when she had no role in the film when it was released to the public. Sheehan is a prolific class action-filer known for his novel theories of consumer deception that have sometimes angered judges.
The same year Yesterday, which imagines a world without The Beatles, was released, de Armas played a lead role in the hit Knives Out. She was nominated for a Golden Globe for Best Actress.
However, her scenes in Yesterday were cut because test audiences weren't on board with her character's story.