Netflix Must Face ‘Queen’s Gambit’ Defamation Lawsuit, US Judge Rules

A Georgian former chess world champion’s $5-million (roughly Rs. 37.5 crores) lawsuit towards Netflix will go forward after she claimed she was defamed in an episode of “The Queen’s Gambit,” a Los Angeles choose has dominated.

Chess grandmaster Nona Gaprindashvili, 80, filed a swimsuit in September claiming {that a} line within the collection by which a personality claims she had “never faced men” in her profession was “grossly sexist and belittling.”

Gaprindashvili had confronted dozens of male rivals by 1968, the yr by which the wildly standard restricted collection “The Queen’s Gambit” is principally set.

Lawyers for Netflix tried to have the swimsuit dismissed on the bottom that the collection is a piece of fiction and due to this fact lined by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, which protects free speech.

But federal choose Virginia Phillips on Thursday denied their movement, noting that “the fact that the series was a fictional work does not insulate Netflix from liability for defamation if all the elements of defamation are otherwise present.”

“The Queen’s Gambit,” starring Anya Taylor-Joy, is predicated on a 1983 novel by Walter Tevis and tells the story of a younger orphan who turns into the world’s best chess participant.

While central character Beth Harmon is fictional, the collection options a number of real-life chess characters together with Gaprindashvili.

Gaprindashvili was the primary lady to be awarded the International Chess Federation title of Grandmaster, in 1978.