The court fight between Charlie Sheen, Warner Brothers and the producer Chuck Lorre is on, for real.
In a Santa Monica courtroom this morning, Judge Jacqueline A. Connor of Los Angeles Superior Court turned down a last-minute request for a temporary restraining order that would have blocked the dispute from being sent to arbitration by JAMS/Endispute, a mediation firm. The request for arbitration was made by Warner, invoking what it said it believed to be a contractual right.
Judge Connor said the request belonged in the courtroom of Superior Court Judge Allan J. Goodman, who is presiding over Mr. Sheen’s underlying suit against Mr. Lorre and Warner.
Martin Singer, Mr. Sheen’s lead litigator, gave verbal notice to lawyers for JAMS and Warner that he planned to take the request to Judge Goodman by 10 a.m. on Thursday.
According to papers filed by Mr. Singer on Wednesday, Mr. Sheen has been notified that JAMS will unilaterally put an arbitrator on the case if Mr. Sheen doesn’t select one
by 5 p.m. on Wednesday.
“JAMS has decided to barrel ahead and administer what it presumes will be a lucrative arbitration,” Mr. Singer’s court papers said. The application for a restraining order argues, among other things, that Mr. Sheen has no arbitration agreement with Mr. Lorre, and the cast and crew of his show “Two and a Half Men,” on whose behalf he is also suing, have no such agreement.
The whole fight erupted when Warner terminated Mr. Sheen’s involvement with the show, one of television’s most popular, setting up a legal fight that promises to be one of Hollywood’s most closely watched.