Filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s company Warrior Poets will pay more than a million dollars in a lawsuit filed against him by Turner Entertainment Networks, according to court papers obtained by TheWrap.
According to a filing in federal court in California on Tuesday, Spurlock and his company Warrior Poets will pony up nearly $1.2 million in the legal action.
“The parties, Warrior Poets (‘Defendant’) and Turner Entertainment Networks, Inc. (‘Plaintiff’), have agreed to entry of this Final Judgment finally disposing of this action,” Tuesday’s filing notes.
“Judgment is entered for Plaintiff and against Defendant on all claims in the amount of $1,173,707,” the paperwork reads.
“The Parties waive any right to appeal,” the filing adds.
Spurlock was sued by Turner in March, after Spurlock’s late-2017 admission that he had engaged in sexual misconduct. Turner alleged that a project about women’s issues was halted after the admission.
In the suit, Turner said that it entered into a production services agreement with Spurlock’s production company Warrior Poets — also named as a defendant in the suit — for a project titled “Who Rules the World?” The project was described in the suit as “a series focused on issues facing women.”
However, the suit said, things went south in December 2017 when Spurlock “issued a public statement in which he confessed to sexual misconduct, sexual harassment, and substance abuse and stepped down from his position at Warrior Poets.” The project was halted, according to the complaint, and “[c]ritical partners involved in the Project severed their relationship with Spurlock and Warrior Poets.”
The suit said that the agreement called for funds for the project provided by Turner Entertainment Networks to be placed in a special bank account to be used solely for the project, and that Turner’s “repeated efforts to obtain the funds from Defendants have been met with radio silence.”
Alleging breach of written contract, the suit sought an order preventing the funds from being used for anything else, and ultimately for the funds to be returned to Turner.
TheWrap has reached out to comment from an attorney for Spurlock and a spokesperson for Turner seeking comment on Tuesday’s filing.
In December, Spurlock took to Twitter to divulge that he’d been accused of rape and to declare, “I’m part of the problem.”
In a lengthy post, the “Super Size Me” director wrote, “She believed she was raped.”
“As I sit around watching hero after hero, man after man, fall at the realization of their past indiscretions, I don’t sit by and wonder ‘who will be next?’ I wonder, ‘when will they come for me?’” Spurlock wrote, recalling an incident when he was in college.
Pamela Chelin contributed to this report.