The California Supreme Court rejected a sexual harassment lawsuit against the producers of the TV show “Friends,” by an assistant who claimed writers often used coarse and vulgar language in detailing their sexual exploits and those by the show’s actors.
The justices ruled 7-0 in favor of Warner Bros. Television Productions whose lawyers argued that such raunchy talk was part of the creative process of a show that dealt with sexual themes, the Los Angeles Times reported today.
Thirty-two-year-old Amaani Lyle filed a suit in 2000, claiming explicit sexual remarks during work sessions and other conversations amounted to sexual harassment in the workplace.
She was fired four months into her job, purportedly because she couldn’t transcribe writers’ meetings fast enough.
The justices ruled that Lyle had been warned when she took the job that explicit language was part of process of developing the sex-themed comedy.
But the justices also noted that similar language elsewhere could be illegal.
