Megan Thee Stallion is trying to have her former photographer’s harassment lawsuit against her dismissed because of her lack of ties to the state in which it was filed.
Per documents obtained by Legal Affairs and Trials‘ Meghann Cuniff on Wednesday (June 26), the Houston rapper’s legal team is maintaining that Emilio Garcia’s lawsuit has no legitimate ties to California (where it was filed) and should therefore be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.
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“This case involves an alleged incident that occurred out of the country, an out-of-state plaintiff, and an out-of-state defendant with no minimum contacts with California,” they wrote in the 24-page motion.
According to the legal paperwork, Meg resides in Miami and doesn’t own any property in California. Likewise, Garcia also does not reside in California, and the incident in his claim did no occur there either.
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Her legal team has asked to move the case to New York so that Meg will not miss any tour dates in the process of appearing and responding to the suit. According to Cuniff, the rapper’s lawyers are expected to seek permanent dismissal at a later date.
As previously reported, Emilio Garcia filed suit against Megan Thee Stallion in April. In it, he is accusing her of harassment for having sex with another woman in front of him in Ibiza and misclassifying him as an independent contractor instead of a full-time employee. He also alleges that Megan improperly fired him from his job and owes him money for rest breaks and overtime.
It is important to note that he is suing under California law that states employees who work over a certain number of hours can not be classified as independent contractors.
Megan’s attorneys hit out at the filing, saying: “This is an employment claim for money — with no sexual harassment claim filed and with salacious accusations to attempt to embarrass her. We will deal with this in court.”
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They later filed an official response, dubbing Garcia a “con artist” who is “manipulating the judicial system to act as his publicist and bullhorn.”
It coninues: “Plaintiff took a run of the mill wage and labor dispute governed by New York law under the terms of his contract and trumped it up with sensationalist claims of sex, debauchery, and workplace harassment for the sole purpose of seeking attention for his own middling amateur artist career and to tarnish the reputation of [Megan].”
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The filing from Megan’s attorneys also includes numerous invoices, payment records and posts from Garcia’s Instagram that place him in Houston as proof that the lawsuit should be thrown out.
In response, Emilio Garcia’s attorney Ron Zambrano said in a statement to HipHopDX: “This is just another attempt by another celebrity to shame the victim and shift blame from their own abhorrent behavior.
“Her attorneys are correct, our client is angry, but not by being so-called exiled ‘from the inner circles of stardom.’ He’s angry because of how he was treated. Megan Thee Stallion broke the law. Period. No one is lying here but her.”
