Time for another update in regards to the Paula Deen racial slur saga. The judge who was overseeing her trial has officially dismissed the case after an out of court settlement was reached between the two parties.
The lawsuit of Jackson v. Deen has been dismissed by Judge William T. Moore of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia. On Friday, the judge handed down his verdict...but not before some courtroom drama.
Early in the day, Deen’s attorneys filed a motion to get Matthew Billips (the opposing attorney) removed from the case. Deen was claiming that Mr. Billips used media leaks to destroy the chef, telling the judge that Billips:
“...used possible media attention to threaten Defendants (Doc. 101 at 2-4), made inappropriate comments on Twitter that referenced Defendant and this lawsuit (Id. at 4-7), asked irrelevant and purposely embarrassing questions during depositions (id. at 7), filed documents in this Court to pressure Defendant Deen to settle (id. at 8), and previously engaged in generally unprofessional conduct by using misogynistic, vulgar, and offensive statements in comments unrelated to this litigation.”
Deen’s publicist sent The Huffington Post an official statement from both Paula Deen and Ms. Jackson, who instigated the lawsuit last year. While Deen’s statement was what you might expect, Jackson’s was totally out of line with her original statements, telling the publication:
"I assumed that all of my complaints about the workplace environment were getting to Paula Deen, but I learned during this matter that this was not the case.The Paula Deen I have known for more than eight years, is a woman of compassion and kindness and will never tolerate discrimination or racism of any kind toward anyone. I now know that the workplace environment issues that I raised are being reviewed and will in the future no longer be at issue. I wish Ms. Deen and her family all the best in all of their future endeavors and I am very pleased that this matter has been now been resolved and can now be put behind us."
