Tyra v. Netflix: America's Next Top Lawsuit?

**Angela** (0:00)
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**Cesie** (0:59)
You agree to this knowing he has a grudge against you? So what does it matter that he was a consultant? You knew he was going to be interviewed. He probably would have said some bad stuff about you, even if he wasn't a consultant.

**Angela** (1:09)
It could have been so much worse.

**Cesie** (1:12)
Welcome to The Bravo Docket, where your favorite reality TV drama meets the courtroom. I'm Cesie.

**Angela** (1:18)
And I'm Angela. And we're two attorneys with a passion for pop culture, here to dive into the juiciest lawsuits and legal battles in the world of reality TV.

**Cesie** (1:26)
Whether you're here for the facts, fun, or just some Law 101

**Angela** (1:30)
Let's get into today's case.

**Cesie** (1:34)
Hey, everyone. Welcome back to The Bravo Docket. I'm going to let Angela intro this one. She's taken the lead on this episode. What is on The Docket this week?

**Angela** (1:43)
We are taking a detour from Bravo partially. We're going to talk about how Leah McSweeney gets to proceed with her case in federal court and not go into arbitration because that got waived. We mentioned that briefly before, but we're going to just talk about that a little bit.
And then we are going to move on to Netflix. And we're going to talk about the Tyra Banks versus Netflix case. And then we're going to talk about the Love is Blind lawsuit. So this is going to be not just one episode, at least two, maybe three before we get through all of that. But this is really interesting stuff, and I'm excited to chat about it.

**Cesie** (2:20)
Yeah, I remember talking about this Leah stuff.

**Angela** (2:23)
We did a whole bunch of Leah episodes, and I think you briefly mentioned, as an aside, that the motion that Bravo filed to arbitrate was denied. And it turns out the judge wrote a pretty interesting order on this, and I think it may change how some of these networks choose to proceed moving forward.
Cesie, tell us what arbitration is, just generally.

**Cesie** (2:44)
Yes, so it's a form of alternative dispute resolution, which means it's out of court. Typically, it's overseen by a retired judge or an attorney who used to be in private practice for many, many years, and it is a condensed trial, really. There aren't very many rules. Typically, you end up in arbitration because you've signed a contract that says the case has to be moved to arbitration. Typically, as well, in that arbitration agreement, they'll say which arbitration provider you have to go before. There's Jams, which is a major one, AAAs, the other big one. Are there any others? Those are the two that my firm deals with the most.

**Angela** (3:24)
Those are the two big ones.

**Cesie** (3:25)
Yeah, the two big ones. And then the provider's rules are very bare, especially when it comes to discovery. You're basically just agreeing with the other side on what discovery you're going to get, if you're going to get any depositions at all. And then you have an evidentiary hearing before this retired judge or attorney, and they act as a judge and issue a binding decision.
Some people love arbitration. I will say my firm loves arbitration because it is a little bit more lax. It's typically confidential, which with high-profile clients, it's something that you want, and it's faster. California state courts are really backed up.

**Angela** (4:04)
Yeah.

**Cesie** (4:05)
I was really lucky when I was at Winston and Big Law. I was working in federal court mainly, unfortunately, mostly in rocket dockets. So those always went through the entire case process in a year. So that's what I was used to. Now I'm in state court. My cases, we've filed one last year. It still hasn't even made it into discovery. It's been an entire year because you can file appeals and then it gets kicked for another however many months.