The legal battle between former “Love is Blind” cast member Renee Poche and the show’s production company took a new turn when a Superior Court judge denied Ms. Poche’s request for a preliminary injunction. The decision came on March 22, when the judge granted the company’s motion to compel arbitration.
“The motion to compel arbitration is granted as to Defendants Delirium TV, LLC and Netflix, Inc.,” ruled LA Superior Court Judge Bruce G. Iwasaki after the hearing. “This matter is stayed pending the outcome of arbitration.”
Ms. Poche is featured in the fifth season of the show, in which contestants court each other in special purpose-built “pods,” allowing them to communicate without seeing each other. Once a marriage proposal is made, the contestants are then allowed to meet in person.
The couples are then sent on a holiday and have to live with each other for several weeks, during which time they must decide whether to proceed with the wedding.
Ms. Poche was paid $8,000 to appear on the show but claimed that the man she fell in love with and got subsequently engaged to on the show—a 30-year-old construction worker named Carter Wall—turned out to be an emotionally unstable drug addict under whom she suffered emotional abuse.
According to Ms. Poche’s complaint, Wall frequently berated her and stole from the places they visited. In addition, he abused amphetamines and painkillers, which he asked others to get for him.
“On multiple nights, Wall did not go to sleep at all due to his abuse of amphetamines. Wall was emotionally abusive on and off camera, lied malignantly, and heavily abused drugs and alcohol,” according to the complaint.
In her complaint, which she filed in January, Ms. Poche alleged that she faced pressure to continue her relationship with Wall and proceed with the wedding, which ultimately led to her refusing to say “I do.”
However, Ms. Poche gave a string of interviews after the storyline was mostly cut from the series before it was aired, which, according to the producers of the show Delirium and streaming platform Netflix, violated Ms. Poche’s nondisclosure clause.
Netflix and Delirium subsequently sued Ms. Poche for $4 million for breach of contract. The contract also included an arbitration clause, which referred all legal disputes to JAMS, the largest private arbitration and mediation service in the country.
While Ms. Poche’s attorneys asked for a preliminary injunction to block those proceedings, Delirium requested the judge to issue an order to compel Ms. Poche into arbitration.
Ms. Poche’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, argued that her contract was in violation of the Fair Employment and Housing Act, as it effectively deferred her right to sue over anything, including serious injury or death.
“There’s very rarely a release that covers everything that could happen to you,” Mr Freedman said. “She could be punched in the face [or] sexually assaulted.”
“You can’t pre-release intentional torts,” he added. “That pre-release is a violation of FEHA.”
However, the judge made his position to side with Delirium and Netflix clear in his response.
“The issue right now is the forum,” said the judge. “You can argue that the release is overbroad [or] is against public policy. All of those things, you can raise to the arbitrator,” adding that arbitrability is decided by the arbitrator, the contract states.
“The court is stuck with the contract. That’s the contract,” the judge went on to say, pointing to the clear and unmistakable language set out in the nondisclosure clause.
Meanwhile, the delegation clause set out in the contract was described as “procedurally unconscionable” by another of Ms. Poche’s attorneys, Jason Sunshine, who argued that the producers imposed it without the presence of a legal representative who could offer further clarity on the terms.
Mr. Sunshine went on to state that Ms. Poche lacked sufficient funds to pay for arbitration, although Delirium agreed to cover the costs in this instance, which are normally split by both parties, before pointing to other issues within the dispute.
However, Judge Iwasaki decided there was insufficient evidence to rule the unconscionable delegation clause.
After pleading with the judge on several occasions to re-examine one of the clauses in the contract that allegedly amounted to an exception to the arbitration clause, Mr. Sunshine was rebuffed by the judge, who told him that the language in the agreement did not corroborate such a statement.
“You understand that Ms. Poche is being sued in arbitration? She made $8,000. She’s being sued for $4 million,” Mr Freedman asked the judge.
“To put her through that process and to not really look at what her rights are under the delegation clause is really unfair. It’s just a shame the way people are treated in this space,” Mr Freedman added, referring to the television industry.
“It doesn’t matter whether it’s in arbitration or the court of public opinion,” Mr Freedman said after the hearing.
“Holding someone responsible for $4 million when you pay them $8,000 for a show is disgusting. It doesn’t comport with any of our society’s norms. We’re all trying to be better … but “reality TV isn’t trying to be better. They’re trying to get ratings,” he concluded.
Delirium’s lawyers, Larry Iser and Allen Secretov, later issued a written statement praising the ruling. They said that Ms. Poche chose to file a complaint rather than defend against Delirium’s claims in arbitration.
The attorneys added that the legal battle could have been avoided had Ms. Poche heeded Delirium’s repeated warnings to stop her unauthorized interviews.
Mr. Freedman later said that his client would appeal the ruling and that he was confident it would be overturned.
“We don’t agree that arbitration is the right forum and will appeal that decision, but Renee will get her day of justice no matter what venue controls,” Mr Freedman said after the ruling, as reported by Deadline.
