A new filing by Alec Baldwin’s legal team attempts to eliminate any possibility of the actor bearing guilt for the fatal shooting on a film set last year.
The arbitration demand, which arrived less than a month after the family of dead cinematographer Halyna Hutchins filed a wrongful death lawsuit alleging that Baldwin and his producers are at fault for Hutchins’s death, was filed with an unspecified court. Baldwin’s complaint, submitted on Friday, alleges the actor did not play any role in the accidental loading of live rounds into his gun.
“At this point, two things are clear: someone is culpable for chambering the live round that led to this horrific tragedy, and it is someone other than Baldwin. Baldwin is an actor,” reads the legal filing. “He didn’t announce that the gun was ‘cold’ when it really contained a live round; he didn’t load the gun; he didn’t check the bullets in the gun; he didn’t purchase the bullets; he didn’t make the bullets and represent that they were dummies; he wasn’t in charge of firearm safety on the set; he didn’t hire the people who supplied the bullets or checked the gun; and he played no role in managing the movie’s props. Each of those jobs was performed by someone else.”
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The complaint attempted to assign blame to the production assistants and staff who were present at the time of the incident.
“As he had done throughout his career, Baldwin trusted the other professionals on the set to do their jobs,” the filing said, noting that Baldwin has safely handled firearms in multiple films and has also been in situations where guns were pointed at him while on set.
The complaint requests indemnification for Baldwin and seeks compensatory and consequential damages, attorney’s fees, and other potential relief.
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Baldwin and the Rust team are currently facing several lawsuits over the shooting. Hutchins’s family filed a suit against Baldwin and the film’s producers, and the film’s script supervisor filed one as well, alleging emotional and physical harm from the incident. Baldwin’s lawyers attempted to dismiss the case, noting that New Mexico labor law should handle the matter rather than the Los Angeles County Superior Court.
The film’s armorer, Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, also filed a suit against the ammunition supplier in January, alleging the company had created “dangerous conditions” onset due to mishandling the live rounds.
