Yesterday was again a small victory for Nicollette on her legal battle against Marc Cherry and Touchstone Television.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White ruled against a defense motion to throw out claims on the lawsuit alleging wrongful termination in violation of public policy and breach of the implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing. She said the motion was similar to the previous one she already rejected earlier this month; “it appears to be a motion for reconsideration and it is not well taken”.

Defense alleges the decision was made months prior to any incident ocurring on September 2008.

The trial, scheduled for June 8, has been delayed until October.

Source

Is there something you’re dying to ask to Nicollette? Now you can!

Huffington Post is giving you the chance to participate in one of their social interviews with the star of the upcoming Hallmark movie Honeymoon For One.

And what do you have to do? Leave your name, city and question in the comments of their article, tweet yor question to @huffingtonpost using the hashtag #socialinterviews; or e-mail it to submissions@huffingtonpost.com with the subject line “Social Interviews.”

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Elizabeth Allen White has ruled a jury should decided if Nicollette Sheridan’s character was unfairly written out of the ABC hit show.

The Judge tossed aside a few of Sheridan’s claims but said there was enough of a dispute about what led to her ouster for the case to go to trial next month.

ABC and Cherry’s attorney argued that the decision to kill off Edie Britt was made months before her argument with Cherry. He said the decision was made by Cherry and a small group in May 2008 and kept from others on the show to avoid ruining the surprise.

Sheridan’s attorney said the network’s justification that it was a cost-cutting move didn’t make sense since Sheridan’s character was killed off in a car accident in the middle of the season and she was still owed hundreds of thousands of dollars on her contract.

After listening to several minutes of arguments about disputed facts in the case, White said, “It’s clear to the court that this is something that needs to go to a jury.”

Her ruling threw out sexual harassment and assault claims, but Sheridan’s attorneys will be able to seek damages on wrongful termination, battery and unlawful retaliation claims and can still seek punitive damages.

“I’m very happy that I’m being treated fairly,” Sheridan said after the hearing.

“We’re confident that a jury looking at all of the evidence and the numerous witnesses will conclude the character Edie Britt was killed off of ‘Desperate Housewives’ for lawful reasons and Ms. Sheridan was never battered,” Levin said after the hearing.

The trial is scheduled to begin June 8.

Source

This last Thursday, Nicollette was one of the presenters at the 15th PRISM Awards held in Los Angeles.

Given by the Entertainment Industries Council, it honors accurate depictions of substance abuse and mental health issues in movies, TV, and music. Among the winners this year are The Fighter (Substance Use) and Black Swan (Mental Health) on features films; and Toni Collette (United States Of Tara), KaDee Strickland (Private Practice) and Parenthood on TV.

15th Annual PRISM Awards – Arrivals
15th Annual PRISM Awards – Inside

Forget about June, The Futon Critic reports Nicollette’s new movie Honeymoon For One will be released on August 13 and will be on Hallmark Channel (not Hallmark Movie Channel).

Seems Nicollette is not alone, as former writer and executive producer on Desperate Housewives has stepped forward and supports Nicollette’s timeline that led to Edie’s fatal accident.

Emmy-winning TV producer Lori Kirkland Baker, who worked on the show from May 2007 to May 2009, submitted sworn declaration on April 9th saying she didn’t know Sheridan’s character would be eliminated until at least September 2008.

“In fall of 2008, Mr. Cherry began talking with the writing staff, myself included, about killing off the Edie Britt character, I have no recollection of any decision to kill off the Edie Britt character prior to fall of 2008.”

And around the time of the alleged Sheridan slap, says Kirkland Baker, “Mr. Cherry had expressed to the writers, in my presence, increasing frustration with Ms. Sheridan.” That led to a December meeting in which Cherry told the writing staff that he had met with then-ABC president Steve McPherson and had decided to kill off the Sheridan character at the end of Season 5, according to the declaration.

However, after Cherry returned from attending the inauguration party for President Obama in January 2009, “Mr. Cherry advised the writing staff that he’d changed his mind about the timing of Edie Britt’s death,” Kirkland Baker says. “Rather than waiting for the end of the season, he wanted to change course and, instead, have Edie Britt killed off much sooner.” The writer/producer says Cherry then instructed his staff that the character “was going to be killed off in one of the next episodes to be written and filmed.”

ABC lead lawyer Adam Levin declined to comment on the case. But the network’s counter to that argument is that Kirkland Baker simply wasn’t privy to the actual plans for the show until Cherry was prepared to go public. Indeed, in its motion, ABC says the fate of Sheridan’s character “was kept highly confidential to prevent leaks to the media and public.”

Still, Sheridan’s lawyers argue in their court papers that the testimony of such insiders as Kirkland Baker and another writer-producer, Jeffrey Greenstein, “show that Cherry decided to kill off Edie after the September 24, 2008 assault and after she complained to Touchstone.”

Source

When it comes to romance, a pair beats three of a kind.

Golden Globe ® nominee Nicollette Sheridan stars in ‘Honeymoon For One’. A Hallmark Movie Channel Original World Premiere June 4.

Man, it was never like this on “Desperate Housewives.” Or maybe it was. Only Nicollette Sheridan knows for sure, and she’s too busy proving that both one is the loneliest number and three’s a crowd in this lively Hallmark Movie Channel Original World Premiere that whets everyone’s appetite for those lazy, crazy days of summer. Sheridan portrays Eve Parker, your basic high-powered and driven ad industry exec who is forced to put the kibosh on her engagement a mere week before she was to marry her cheating fiancé Greg (Patrick Baladi). But rather than let a perfectly good trip to go waste, Eve heads solo to the magnificent castle estate in Ireland where she and the cad had planned to honeymoon. Fun for one. Sounds reasonably idyllic. But then everything starts going hopelessly wrong, from lost luggage to clashes with the estate’s outdoors-y manager Sean (Greg Wise) to – oh yes – Greg’s threats to level the castle property into a golf course, since his company just purchased the property. Dang, what does a girl need to do to find a moment’s peace? There will be none of that for Eve. Not with Greg back begging for forgiveness and Sean also competing to sweep her into his arms. Decisions, decisions. And let’s remember that you can’t spell Ireland without “ire.” We’re holding out hope here for a happy ending and that the luck o’ the Irish comes through to save the day.

I’ve added screencaptures of Nicollette on the Mary Higgins Clark’s novel based movie Haven’t We Met Before?

Menus
Picture Gallery
Screencaptures

This Saturday Nicollette was present to see the president of the Farrah Fawcett Foundation and long-time friend Alana Stewart, receive the “True Grit” Humanitarian Award during the John Wayne Cancer Institute’s 26th Odyssey Ball.

26th Odyssey Ball

Check out this video of Nicollette during the photocall speaking about cancer.

It was a victory in court yesterday when Judge White ruled Nicollette doesn’t have to give further testimony of conversations with a lawyer she consulted before filing a lawsuit against Desperate Housewives‘ creator. Levin said he only wanted to ask the actress about those conversations with Meyer in which she asked him to tell officials at ABC Studios and Touchstone Television Productions what Cherry had allegedly done to her.

Los Angeles Superior Court rejected Cherry’s attorney Adam Levin’s claim that portions of the conversations were not protected by attorney client-privilege.; saying “I think it is a very extreme position to take.”

But defense attorneys recently filed papers asking the entire case to be dismissed, claiming Marc Cherry decided to kill off Edie Britt four months before the mentioned assault. On papers filed earlier this month Levin says “characters die on television series all the time (…) death is as much a part of scripted television as it is a part of life. Of course, whenever a character dies, an actor loses a job. That is what happened here.” And according to those papers, Cherry decided to eliminate Sheridan’s character in May 2008. “Cherry believed that the character had run its course and that her death would invigorate the show,” Levin’s papers also add Sheridan and the other actors were not told of the impending development until nine months later.

According to Levin, Sheridan’s assertion that her complaint that Cherry hit her in the head with an open hand in September 2008 led to her firing is undercut by the evidence of the earlier decision to eliminate her character from the show.”It is axiomatic that the termination decision in May (2008) could not have been motivated by any complaint that occurred on Sept. 24.”

The papers also challenge Sheridan’s claim she was struck hard by Cherry after she questioned him about a change in a script. He states an investigation by Touchstoen concluded he merely gave her “a light tap on the side of the head for the sole purpose of providing direction for a scene they were rehearsing” and that Cherry later apologized. The actress “never communicated to anyone that she believed Cherry hit her because of her sexual orientation, her age or her gender,” Levin’s court papers state. “Sheridan candidly admits that she does not know why Cherry hit her.” And that Sheridan was “obviously unhappy to lose her job as a highly compensated star of ‘Desperate Housewives‘.”

Source