Entertainment Studios, a black-owned multi-media company, can add two instances of alleged racial animus to its suit against Charter, according to a California federal judge.
The court also dismissed arguments that the suit is nothing but a “scam.”
The suit was brought by Entertainment Studios Networks Inc. and the National Association of African-American Owned Media. They claim that Charter Communications Inc. will not carry any ESN programs because the CEO of the cable giant, Tom Rutledge “is a blatant racist.”
According to the judge, arguments of lack of evidence and that ESN specifically targets companies when seeking government merger approval are “inappropriate” at this point.
“The court will not engage in a round of mini-fact- finding at this stage of this litigation in order to determine whether or not the incidents in question occurred (and sees no reason to require plaintiffs to provide evidence supporting their proposed new allegations at this point),” stated U.S. District Judge George H. Wu. “As such, that proffered basis for a bad faith finding is rejected. In addition, even if plaintiffs have employed strategic timing in electing when to initiate this litigation, the court does not believe that this is a necessarily inappropriate tactic.”
While Charter sought to have the suit dismissed, the judge gave ESN time to amend the lawsuit. Charter will have until September 23 to respond to the newly amended suit.
They claim in the complaint that Rutledge and other executives at Charter went out of their way to avoid carrying their networks.
The newly amended suit alleges two incidents showing “direct evidence of racism,” ESN’s counsel Louis “Skip” Miller stated. He says he is “looking forward” to taking the case to trial.
The new complaint claims that the specific incidents in question involve Rutledge and former Charter Senior Vice President of Programming Allan Singer.
The owner, founder and CEO of ESN, Byron Allen, approached Rutledge in May only to be called “boy” before being told he had to “change his behavior.”
Singer allegedly approached several African-Americans who were protesting outside of Charter headquarters and made “derogatory racist comments.”
“Singer yelled at these African-Americans and told them to get off welfare and that they were typical African-Americans looking for a handout,” says the new complaint. The complaint also alleges Singer stereotyped one of the people as an African-American who was out of work, saying he spent his money on “frivolous things.”
Charter claims in their dismissal motion that they did not enter into a programming agreement with ESN for legitimate business reasons. One of those reasons was the limitations on their bandwidth. They also claim that their decisions are protected by the First Amendment.
While Judge Wu stated the First Amendment aspect was an “interesting argument,” he still felt it inappropriate to bring it up in his courtroom at this time. Judge Wu also pointed out that ESN has suits against other companies and those cases are moving forward.
Entertainment Studios has also filed a $20 billion racial discrimination lawsuit against Comcast. That case is presided over by U.S. District Judge Terry Hatter Jr.
In August, several Charter customers in North Texas were subject to racist messages on their TV screens. One customer, April Taylor — who is African-American — shared the message with WFAA-TV:
“F— Black lives matter! 1488 Brought to you by Phreak of Nature Baby J and King Benji! All N—— Must Die!”
According to the Anti-Defamation League, the ‘1488’ is a “combination of two popular white supremacist numeric symbols. The first symbol is 14, which is shorthand for the “14 Words” slogan: “We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children.” The second is 88, which stands for “Heil Hitler” (H being the 8th letter of the alphabet)
“If plaintiffs’ contentions were truly as dead-in-the-water as Charter asserts they are because of the impact of Charter’s First Amendment rights, the court would expect each of those other two lawsuits to have ended precipitously, in favor of the defendants,” Judge Wu stated.
ESN is the parent company of theGrio.com and is a completely 100 percent African-American owned company with seven networks.