USA Today reports that Kesha Rose Sebert’s case against Sony and Dr. Luke has been nearly entirely — with the exception of one counterclaim that remains — thrown out by New York Supreme Court Justice Shirley Werner Kornreich. This follows her decision in February not to grant the pop star a preliminary injunction.
Today, Kornreich dismissed the vast majority of case on the grounds that the incidents of sexual assault that Kesha has accused Dr. Luke of occurred outside of New York (an alleged assault on an airplane and alleged rape in a hotel room), that it’s past the statute of limitations, and that it couldn’t be deemed a hate crime. The court’s response to Kesha’s claim that the attacks should be classified as such, as quoted in The Daily Beast, was that “although [Dr. Luke’s] alleged actions were directed to Kesha, who is female, [her claims] do no allege that [Luke] harbored animus toward women or was motivated by gender animus when he allegedly behaved violently toward Kesha.” According to The Hollywood Reporter, the judge wrote, “Every rape is not a gender-motivated hate crime.”
Kesha had supposedly been offered a chance to get out of her contract with Dr. Luke if she were to publicly apologize and took back her rape allegations. She’d very understandably chosen not to, writing instead on Instagram:
I got offered my freedom IF i were to lie. I would have to APOLOGIZE publicly and say that I never got raped. THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS behind closed doors. I will not take back the TRUTH. I would rather let the truth ruin my career than lie for a monster ever again.
The judge said that Kesha’s declination to agree to this ultimatum was “unreasonable” and that, as far as claims of intentional infliction of emotional distress go, “insults about her value as an artist, her looks, and her weight are insufficient to constitute extreme, outrageous conduct intolerable in civilized society.”
And though Kesha had recently filed an appeal and hired a new lawyer to try to alter the judge’s conclusion about releasing her from her contracts, this time around the judge, according to THR, dismissed “the claims without an opportunity to amend her complaint.”
Neither Kesha nor Sony’s representatives have made statements yet.