Former ESPN talent Adrienne Lawrence on set. Photo: YouTube

Adrienne Lawrence's sexual harassment lawsuit against ESPN cleared a preliminary legal hurdle in Connecticut Thursday after a judge rejected a motion to dismiss, and a motion for sanctions.

Judge Stefan Underhill denied ESPN's motion for sanctions over publication of Lawrence's sexual harassment claims, and denied ESPN's motion to dismiss the false light claim for failure to state a claim. Underhill announced his ruling in a 48-minute conference call with attorneys for ESPN and Lawrence.

The judge did say that certain allegations made in the March lawsuit were not relevant and ordered those portions removed. Those passages dealt with alleged inappropriate conduct at the network from the 1970s to 1990s.

Underhill also gave both sides until Dec. 26 to submit a discovery schedule.

Lawrence, a former attorney herself who is now a freelancer for Madden NFL, leveled claims against ESPN stating the network tried to damage her credibility after she accused SportsCenter anchor John Buccigross of sexual harassment.

Lawrence's false light claims stated ESPN tried to hurt Lawrence's reputation by “stating aloud or otherwise publishing statements to third parties that intentionally or recklessly impugned plaintiff's character, judgment and integrity.” The false light claims also state ESPN “made the implications and misleading statements about plaintiff intentionally or with reckless disregard to its offensiveness.”

Specifically, Lawrence claims in her lawsuit that the network “used bots and fake social media accounts to promote the fraudulent text messages (allegedly sent between Lawrence and Buccigross), to attack Ms. Lawrence and spread vile commentary about her.”

Patrick Shea, a Paul Hastings partner representing ESPN, said Monday he's not surprised the motion for sanctions were denied since Underhill rarely grants them. “He has very high standards for what he considers to be sanctionable actions and that was not met by either party,” Shea said.

Shea, representing ESPN along with colleague Raymond Bertrand, said the ruling to remove certain passages from the lawsuit is important since those items were pulled from a book outlining often crude behavior at ESPN. The portions were included in the lawsuit in an attempt to show there was a long history of sex discrimination and harassment at the network going back four decades.

“The judge said [the revised complaint] would be limited to matters that occurred within five years of her hiring date, which, obviously, we regard as important,” Shea said.

Jeanne Christensen, a partner with New York City-based Wigdor, LLP and one of Lawrence's three attorneys with that firm, said ESPN delayed a small portion of the case in its attempt to dismiss the false light claim.

“They could have jumped into litigation and started discovery,”Christensen said. “There were nine causes of action and ESPN did not challenge eight of them.”

The nine causes of action cited in the lawsuit include sexual discrimination and harassment, negligent supervision, creating a hostile work environment, aiding and abetting, and retaliation.

Christensen said the removal of the book excerpts will not have a negative impact on Lawrence's claims.

No one from ESPN's media relations team responded to a request for comment.

Before joining ESPN, Lawrence was employed at McGuireWoods in Washington, D.C., and Greenberg Traurig in New York City. Lawrence had previously clerked for Judge Eric Washington at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit and was an associate at Arent Fox. She also once taught criminal and tort law at Strayer University. Lawrence earned her law degree from George Washington University Law School in 2008.

Assisting Christensen are colleagues Michael Willemin and Bryan Arbeit.

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