Lisa Kudrow didn’t have many friends who were there for her in court on Tuesday.
The former “Friends” star has been denied a motion for a new trial, after being ordered to pay more than $1 million to her former manager, Scott Howard, Howard’s attorney, Mark D. Baute, told TheWrap on Tuesday.
In February, Kudrow was ordered to pay $1.6 million to Howard, after a jury found in a 10-2 count that Kudrow had violated her oral agreement with her former manager.
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However, Kudrow’s legal team filed a motion for a new trial in May, alleging, among other things, that the weight of the evidence at trial was insufficient to justify the verdict, and that one of the jurors, an attorney, improperly told other jurors to ignore a jury instruction and made other
improper communications.
However, in declarations filed with the court, multiple jurors dispute that they heard the juror in question say to ignore a jury instruction. And an opposition to Kudrow’s motion for a new trial, filed last month, accuses the new motion of rehashing arguments that were rejected in the original trial.
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“[T]he bulk of Kudrow’s motion is taken up with a re-hash of her spin on the evidence that the jury heard and considered. ignoring all of the evidence which ultimately undermined Kudrow’s contrived and fundamentally illogical defense position in this case,” the opposition reads. “Hearing these arguments for a second or third time does not make them anymore [sic] believable.”
A tentative ruling handed down on Tuesday said that the evidence presented at the trial was sufficient to support the jury’s finding, and that allegations that a juror was directing the other jurors to disregard instructions were insufficient.
“All jurors were encouraged to share their impressions of the evidence with the other jurors,” the ruling reads. “There is an instruction that jurors can disregard instructions that they deem do not apply.”
Kudrow’s attorney has not yet responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
Baute vowed to file a motion seeking fines against Kudrow for filing a frivolous appeal in a statement to TheWrap last week.
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“A jury of her peers has now told her emphatically that she owes Scott Howard a lot of money, and she’s like any other defendant, she needs to respect the law and pay her debts just like everyone else,” Baute said. “Her appeal is utterly meritless, and if she wants to spend two years on appeal, we will collect another $350,000 in interest. I will also make sure to file a motion asking that she be fined by the court of appeal under a case called Flaherty for filing a frivolous appeal.”
Kudrow added on Tuesday, “I don’t think Ms. Kudrow has really any chance of winning an appeal,” noting, “rather, I think she’ll be fined by the court of appeal for filing a frivolous appeal.”