Lawsuit against actor Alec Baldwin for Rust shooting heads towards trial

LOS ANGELES – Two years after Alec Baldwin was cleared of criminal charges in a fatal shooting on the Rust (2024) film set, a judge on April 17 allowed a civil case to proceed that could result in another high-profile trial over whether the American actor bears responsibility for the tragedy.

The lawsuit was filed by Mr Serge Svetnoy, the movie’s chief lighting technician, who was standing near cinematographer Halyna Hutchins when she was shot on the New Mexico set in October 2021.

Baldwin, who was playing a 19th-century outlaw, had been positioning his revolver for the camera when it discharged, firing a live round that hit Ms Hutchins. The movie’s director Joel Souza was struck by the same bullet but survived.

Mr Svetnoy accused Baldwin and the production company behind the film of negligence, citing a failure to follow gun safety protocols, including the prohibition against pointing a weapon towards another person.

Baldwin, 68, has denied pulling the trigger and has said that, as an actor, he did not have a duty to personally check the contents of the gun.

On set, he was told the weapon was “cold”, meaning that it did not contain live ammunition. Ms Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the movie’s armourer who was responsible for guns on the set, spent over a year in prison after she was convicted of involuntary manslaughter.

In his decision on the civil case, Judge Maurice Leiter of the Los Angeles Superior Court found that Mr Svetnoy’s allegations of negligence and intentional infliction of emotional distress were sufficient to move forward to trial. “A reasonable jury, based on the evidence provided by Plaintiff, could find that Mr Baldwin acted with a conscious disregard for the rights and safety of others through the ways his actions fell short of accepted industry firearms safety practices,” the judge wrote in court papers.

The judge dismissed another claim for assault, finding that Mr Svetnoy presented “no evidence that Mr Baldwin intended to cause harm to Plaintiff or anyone else”.

The trial is scheduled to start on Oct 12.

Baldwin scored a major legal victory in 2024 when a judge in New Mexico dismissed the criminal case against him. The judge found that the prosecution had withheld evidence that could have shed light on how live rounds got onto the film set, where they should have been prohibited.

Although he has been relieved of the potential of prison time, Baldwin still faces cases in civil court. He and his lawyers will now have to consider whether to settle Mr Svetnoy’s suit or proceed to trial, where it is likely he would testify.

Baldwin has addressed the Rust tragedy and the criminal prosecution extensively, including in podcasts and on a reality show centred on him and his family. He is currently suing the prosecutors who brought the case against him.

“It impacted me in every way – financially, career-wise, my wife, my kids, my health,” Baldwin said of the prosecution on a podcast by American magazine The Hollywood Reporter in April.

Mr Svetnoy, a friend of Ms Hutchins’, said in his lawsuit that after she was struck by the bullet and fell to the ground, he cradled her head and tried to comfort her. He said he has suffered emotional trauma from that day.

Other defendants in his lawsuit include the production company behind Rust and Dave Halls, the movie’s first assistant director, who agreed to a plea deal on a charge of negligent use of a deadly weapon, avoiding prison time. Both have denied that Mr Svetnoy is entitled to damages. NYTIMES