MILEY HITS BACK!

FROM ONPOINTNEWS

Teen idol Miley Cyrus has attacked a $4 billion class action suit alleging she discriminated against Asian Pacific Islanders with a facial expression as “manifestly frivolous” and an attempt to “extort a settlement” from her.

According to a demurrer filed by Cyrus last week, the suit is “well outside the purpose and goal” of California's Unruh Civil Rights Act and seeks to punish her for a “statement” that was not directed at plaintiff Lucie J. Kim and did not deny her full and equal access to any “business establishment” as defined under the act.

Kim alleged in her complaint that Cyrus is a “business establishment” liable for slanting her eyes when she posed for a photograph with a group of friends.

“Plaintiff's Complaint is fatally defective and frivolous, and constitutes the very scenario the California Supreme Court warned of where a plaintiff attempts to extort a settlement based on unsupported factual allegations,” the demurrer says.

In Angelucci v. Century Supper Club, 41 Cal.4th 160 (2007), the court found that a nightclub violated the Unruh Act by charging men a higher admission price than women, but said it was concerned about “the potential for abusive litigation being brought under the Act.”

Kim claims to represent a class of more than one million Asian Pacific Islanders living in California. Cyrus's “racist, prejudicial, stereotypical gesture ... specifically targeted persons of Asian Pacific Islander descent based on their race, color, ancestry and national origin,” the suit said.

No Unruh Act case has defined a celebrity as a “business establishment” but Kim argued that the term applies to Cyrus because she is “a commercial force or organization and currently holds a permanent settled position in the entertainment industry.”

Cyrus attorney Bryan M. Sullivan says in the demurrer that the case should be dismissed because the allegedly discriminatory act of eye-slanting did not relate to the “providing of 'accommodations, advantages, facilities, privileges, or services' to the public,” as required by the Unruh Act.

Under Kim's logic, Sullivan argues,

[A]ny celebrity could be sued under the Unruh Act for any public or private comment insensitive to an individual's sex, race, color, religion, ancestry, national origin, disability, medical condition, marital status, or sexual orientation. This is a slippery slope prudently best avoided, as it would open the floodgates of litigation by permitting the filing of lawsuits over mere expression.

A hearing on the demurrer is set April 24 before Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert L. Hess and Kim probably has about a one-in-four-billion chance of avoiding a dismissal with prejudice.