Nicollette Sheridan Loses Bid For Second ‘Desperate Housewives’ Trial

It’s finally over — at least for now. LA Superior Judge Michael Stern today sided with ABC/Touchstone TV and granted a summary judgement dismissing Nicollette Sheridan’s latest attempt to for a new trial over being dropped from Desperate Housewives. Stern’s ruling was primarily based on the actress not filing a complaint with the California Labor Commission within six months of the September 2008 incident where Sheridan claims show executive producer/creator Marc Cherry struck her on set. ‘It was the right result and the judge’s analysis was spot on. The judge followed Supreme Court precedent that required that Ms. Sheridan’s last remaining claim be dismissed with prejudice,” attorney Adam Levin, representing ABC/Touchstone, told me after the hearing. Sheridan’s last trial ended in a mistrial in March 2012 after the jury deadlocked 8-4. Dramatically trimmed down from her original multimillion-dollar case, Sheridan was now just claiming that she had been fired from the primetime soap in 2009 because she spoke out against working conditions on the series. Even if the case had gone forward, it was going to be a hard one as Cherry was dismissed as a defendant in the original case in early 2012. If ABC’s motion had failed, the retrial was set to start December 2. Attorneys for Sheridan are expected to appeal today’s ruling.