Sony Pictures Entertainment has fired back at former employees who filed suit against the studio by filing a motion to dismiss the legal filings, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.
“There are no allegations of identity theft, no allegations of fraudulent charges, and no allegations of misappropriation of medical information,” the studio said in its court filing. “Instead, the plaintiffs assert a broad range of
The employee lawsuits came after November’s studio hack, that dumped thousands of personal employee documents on filesharing sites including their medical records, social security numbers and emails.
In January, a motion was filed to combine at least seven separate class-action lawsuits filed against the studio into one.
The lawsuits “fail as a matter of law to establish the plaintiffs’ standing to sue,” Sony’s motion to dismiss continued. “Nor do they suffice to establish the type of harm required to state their claims. The Complaint thus falls short of the basic requirement that a plaintiff suffer some concrete and particularized injury before he files suit.”
Sony’s computer, email and entire phone systems were paralyzed in the hacker takedown that began on Nov. 24. The hack led to thousands of documents containing sensitive information about Sony employees to be leaked to various online outlets and ultimately caused the studio to scrap theatrical release plans for the Seth Rogen–James Franco comedy “The Interview.”
The movie was ultimately released in a few hundred independent theaters and streamed online on multiple digital platforms.
The studio itself is still feeling the reverberating effects of the hack, with co-chairman and chairman of the Motion Picture Group, Amy Pascal, stepping down from her post last week.