Judge rules on Romeo And Juliet underage nudity lawsuit

A lawsuit filed by Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting, actors of 1968's Romeo and Juliet, was dismissed by the judge of California on the basis that it was not with the Child Victims Act. 

According to Variety, Judge Alison Mackenzie had sided with the defendant. 

Paramount  won the suit after the Judge agreed to their motion to toss out the case after determining that the actors claim actually did not comply with the Child Victims Act, a temporary law that shifted the statute of limitations on child sex abuse claims.

Passed in 2019, the law offered survivors of sexual abuse a three-year window to file lawsuits over old allegations. However, the judge did not find claims of "child pornography" convincing.

Ultimately, Judge Mackenzie had said that the film was under the premise of First Amendment hence their claims are false.

"Plaintiffs have not put forth any authority showing the film here can be deemed to be sufficiently sexually suggestive as a matter of law to be held to be conclusively illegal," the judge wrote. 

"Plaintiffs’ argument on the subject is limited to cherry-picked language from federal and state statutes without offering any authority regarding the interpretation or application of those statutory provisions to purported works of artistic merit, such as the award-winning film at issue here."

Paramount claimed to dismiss the suit under California’s anti-SLAPP statute. This  aimed to remove such suits that suppress free speech.

Lawyer, Solomon Gresen, who advocated for the actors said in an interview that he was consulting with other lawyers and also filed a lawsuit in federal court. 

For the unversed, Hussey and Whiting were 16 and 17 respectively when they appeared in Franco Zeffirelli’s Oscar winning adaptation.

They filed a lawsuit against Paramount over the film’s display of nudity while they were underage, earlier this year. 

Although now in their 70s, the duo was determined to prove that the were wronged. 

They alleged that the film’s nude and scenes were sexual in nature and that their participation in them was not appropriate.