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Followup: PBS Wins Verdict In Suit By Fired TV Show Host Tavis Smiley

By Katheryn Tucker
April 01, 2020

It was a trial to remember for Morgan, Lewis & Bockius partner Grace Speights, lead defense attorney for PBS against Tavis Smiley, former long-running program host for the TV network — and not just because she defeated a million-dollar labor and employment claim against her client in a high-profile case. TS Media Inc. v. Public Broadcasting Service (PBS), 2018 CA 001247 B. She also won a $1.486 million jury verdict for PBS by using a morals contract clause.

"This was a landmark case, both in terms of the precedent-setting nature of testing the morals clause in contracts before a jury, and by the fact that our client was the one being sued by someone accused of sexual misconduct," Speights told The National Law Journal, an ALM affiliate publication of Entertainment Law & Finance, by email as she flew to the West Coast for a client meeting. (For more coverage of this case, see, "Morals Clause in Spotlight in Smiley PBS Litigation" by Michael S. Poster on p.3 of the March 2020 issue of Entertainment Law & Finance.)

There was a status conference a few days later back in Washington before D.C. Superior Court Judge Yvonne Williams to discuss what to do next. The jury award wasn't the end of the story; there was the matter of attorney fees.

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