A Hollywood talent agency sued along with Bill Cosby by a former actress who alleges the company shares liability with the comedian for a sexual assault on her maintains in new court papers that the part of the case against the firm should be dismissed.
Plaintiff Linda Ridgway-Whitedeer maintains in her Los Angeles Superior Court lawsuit that the William Morris Agency, now known as William Morris Endeavor Entertainment LLC, represented the comedian at the time and knew or should have known of his history of assaulting women.
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According to the lawsuit, while Cosby was preparing for his film "Hickey & Boggs" in 1971, he reached out to his representatives and requested that then-actresss Ridgway-Whitedeer, another agency client, come to the movie location and audition for a role in the film.
Ridgway-Whitedeer alleges that when she arrived at the audition, she expected to see others involved in the casting process. Instead, she says, Cosby ushered her into an office. From there, he allegedly ordered her to sit in a chair abutting the door, ensuring that no one could enter the room. The suit alleges that he grabbed her hair and forced his private parts into her mouth.
But in a four-page answer to the plaintiff's complaint filed Wednesday with Judge Richard L. Fruin, WME attorneys cite six defenses, including that any injuries or damages she suffered occurred due to the "conduct of others over which WME had no control."
WME attorneys also maintain Ridgway-Whitedeer's causes of action against the company are barred by the statute of limitations and that judgment should be entered in favor of the talent agency.
Ridgway-Whitedeer, 77, of Los Angeles, filed the lawsuit Sept. 12 under a 2022 California law eliminating the statute of limitations for most sexual assault cases.
"There are two levels of betrayal at play here that put Linda in Cosby's clutches," Jeff Anderson, Ridgway-Whitedeer's attorney, said in a statement.
"The first is Cosby's power to summon any young, vulnerable actress with promises of a career and opportunities. But he didn't give these women jobs or opportunities in the entertainment industry. He sexually assaulted them. The second layer of betrayal is the William Morris Agency. They knew or should have known that actresses were going to auditions with Cosby and coming back traumatized, assaulted, and raped. And what did William Morris do? Nothing."
In 2016, Ridgway-Whitedeer was invited to testify at a news conference at the California State Capitol, urging then-Gov. Jerry Brown to support SB 813, the bill that eliminated the statute of limitations for rape and sexual assault in the state.
While the law passed, it was not retroactive, meaning it was not applicable to previous cases of sexual assault. In 2022, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed AB 2777 -- the Sexual Abuse and Cover-Up Accountability Act -- which closed that loophole.
Dozens of women have accused Cosby of drugging and raping them over the years, and Cosby has repeatedly denied the allegations.
Cosby, 86, was found guilty of three counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 in Pennsylvania, and sentenced to three to 10 years in prison. His conviction was overturned in 2021 by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court based on a prior prosecution agreement not to charge the defendant.
In June 2022, Cosby was found civilly liable in Santa Monica for the sexual assault of a Riverside County woman who said the comedian sexually abused her when she was a teenager at the Playboy Mansion in the 1970s.
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