A defamation suit against Netflix boils down to how the company presented its story about Martha Scott, a fictionalization of what the show’s creator has described as a real-life stalking incident.
The woman who claims to have inspired the character Martha Scott in the Netflix series “Baby Reindeer” can proceed with a defamation lawsuit against the streaming giant, a federal judge in Los Angeles ruled last week.
The woman, Fiona Harvey, says that she has experienced panic attacks and faced abuse, and that she has developed a fear of going outside, since the show was released in April. Online sleuths quickly identified her as the real-life inspiration behind the character and inundated her with threatening and harassing messages, according to the lawsuit.
The seven-episode limited series, which won six Emmy Awards this month, follows a struggling comedian, Donny Dunn (played by the show’s creator, Richard Gadd) as he is stalked and harassed by Martha Scott, a patron he meets while working at a bar in London. The show follows Donny as his life spirals out of control, and ends with Martha, played by Jessica Gunning, being convicted of stalking.
Mr. Gadd has said the story, which he first developed as a play and then the Netflix series, was based on his own real-life experience with a stalker.
Ms. Harvey’s lawsuit cites a statement that appears at the opening of the show: “This is a true story.”
The case could boil down to an intricate issue of semantics related to that line, according to Judge R. Gary Klausner of the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California, who on Friday denied Netflix’s attempt to dismiss the suit.
