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cinnamonswirl

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  • Connection to/interest in ballet** (Please describe. Examples: fan, teacher, dancer, writer, avid balletgoer)
    former ballet student, currently a balletomane
  • City**
    Washington, DC
  • State (US only)**, Country (Outside US only)**
    Dc

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  1. I agree Abi started to be cast less when Martins was still in charge. The article might have been more informative if it had been written by someone with more knowledge of NYCB who had more context and would have asked more questions. Re the birthday thing -- I imagine that when you have a good relationship with a sibling, you are happy for them even if it's "your" day. But when you already have a strained relationship, anything like that is taken as a slight -- whether or not it was meant as one.
  2. I thought the overall concept was very clever and well-executed, and I would have liked to see it in person--I think some of the bad choreography would have bothered me less. I liked Snow and Marzipan. I thought Flowers was awful: repetitive, and the costumes were so ugly. The rest of the steps were unremarkable. For me, watching Schmacher's choreography just emphasized how wonderful Balanchine's choreography is. Agree with everyone Mira Nadon was lovely. So nice to see everyone dancing again.
  3. The documentary is very good. Also, the cast of children in the streaming version on Marquee is featured in the documentary so I found it nice to watch them after each other. I think I saw that the director is the same -- Larissa Bills.
  4. I don't think Ramasar has a very good defamation case either. He's likely a limited-purpose public figure for defamation purposes. Unsavory and inappropriate as his actions were, I personally think calling him a sexual predator is highly misleading. But from the NYT article, it seems like the protestors using that word are using it out of ignorance and carelessness (negligence), rather than malice, which is the standard public figures must meet in a defamation suit. Ramasar might have better luck moving for a gag order in the current case. He could also trying moving for a more limited gag order or protective order enjoining Waterbury from mentioning Maxwell or contacting her. What happened to Waterbury was abhorrent. But that doesn't mean she should harass people who don't completely agree with her. Her stoking up online trolls like this makes me very nervous. I do feel very sorry for Maxwell. I don't think the First Amendment is implicated here. The First Amendment applies to government restrictions, not actions by other individuals.
  5. Did anyone else catch Waterbury's Instagram story today in which she appeared to be offering to show Maxwell additional nude photos of herself (Maxwell) that Ramasar had sent? (To disprove Maxwell's statement that he only sent one photo of her). I found the idea of offering, on a public social media account, to show someone nude photos of themselves as a way of showing her that she too is a victim to be ... odd.
  6. TWB just announced on instagram that Katherine Barkman is joining the company permanently:
  7. This is one of the differences between being at at-will employee and an employee with a contract. An at-will employee may be fired at any time for anything, so long as the termination is not illegal (e.g., discriminatory). Similarly, an at-will employee can quit at any time. Contract employees can generally only generally be fired for specific reasons, which are outlined in the contact. They cannot quit at any time -- they have to work until the end of the contract, or the employer can sue for damages. As others have pointed out, it is to AGMA's benefit (and the dancers' in general) to ensure that the contract terms are enforced, even if the specific behavior in this case was unsavory.
  8. Even Catazaro and Ramasar prevail in challenging their firings, can't the company still sideline them by simply not casting them? They'd still be getting paid, but they wouldn't be dancing. NYCB contracts don't guarantee non-injured principals a certain number of performances a year, do they?
  9. NIED is negligent infliction of emotional distress and IIED is intentional infliction of emotional distress. Waterbury's NIED and IIED claims have a twist because they are indirect -- it wasn't NYCB that took the actions that caused her distress. Usually these claims are direct (like her claims against Finlay). A couple of people have asked me very specific questions that I don't feel comfortable answering off the top of my head. My posts have been based on my initial reaction to the complaint (issue spotting it, if you will). I haven't looked at case law or even the relevant statutes so I think I need to stop answering such specific questions. I don't think merely doing something on company time would give rise to liability if they were on personal devices using personal phone numbers. Even if they were on company Wifi, I'm not sure the company has the duty to actively monitor Wifi use for improper activity (if that's even possible). Using company Wifi won't go through the company's server. Certainly if they used company email or devices that would be very different and I would have expected the complaint to state that.
  10. Generally, there is no duty to rescue in the United States. If Ann sees Bob committing a tort or crime against Caleb, Ann owes no duty of care to help Caleb, absent a specific relationship between Ann and Caleb that creates a duty of care, or unless Ann created the hazardous situation. I guess Waterbury could argue that NYCB created the hazardous situation with Finlay. But I think that's a real stretch, and her complaint does not appear to lay the groundwork for such an argument, as it alleges that NYCB knew of his behavior, not that it caused the behavior. I believe no duty to rescue is true even if Ann is aware of a pattern of tortious/criminal behavior by Bob. But I fully admit that we are really scraping the bottom of the barrel on what I remember from torts. Yes, no duty to rescue feels wrong. I think most people naturally feel that if you know someone is doing something bad, you should report it, especially if you know that person has done it repeatedly, and that not doing so is wrong. This is one instance where torts does not follow natural law, as it were. There are very specific rules about refiling. As I recall it depends on why the claims were dismissed. Courts are also generally quite liberal with giving leave to amend if a plaintiff has a good reason for needing to beef up the complaint.
  11. Failure to state a complain compasses a couple of different concepts. The one I was specifically thinking of is that a complaint needs to allege a cause of action that is recognized by law. If the cause of action isn't recognized by law, then there is no claim. This goes back to the discussion that we were having earlier about duty. I'm not convinced the law recognizes a duty of care from NYCB to Waterbury. One does not owe a duty of care to all people at all times. To me, from a legal perspective the link between NYCB and Waterbury is too attenuated to be foreseeable. Of course that's my own personal take, and I may well be wrong. A motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim is determined solely on the facts alleged in the complaint. This is one reason why a carefully drafted complaint is important. If you omit something from the complaint, even if it's true and it was accidentally omitted, the court cannot consider it. The court will consider each claim separately. For example, it could dismiss the claims as to NYCB for assault and IIED, but leave the NIED claim intact. (BTW I am not familiar with NY law. However I would be surprised if NY was very different on these issues from the majoritian view that is taught in law schools and tested on the multi-state on bar exams.)
  12. Depends on what the pattern was. Example: is it foreseeable to a reasonable person that someone who was habitually drunk at rehearsal and then got in a car to drive home would get into a car accident? Yes. Is it foreseeable that someone who was habitually drunk at rehearsal would surreptitiously take and disseminate nude photos? The answer to that is less obvious to me. Some people have mentioned what Waterbury may learn in discovery. I expect NYCB's lawyers will immediately move to dismiss the complaint, as regards NYCB, for failure to state a claim (or the New York state law equivalent). If that motion is granted, NYCB is out of the case and there will be no discovery as to NYCB.
  13. Yes, if Waterbury can show foreseeability, then she's a good ways towards showing duty. However, foreseeability is a very squishy area -- in law school, you probably spend about 1/4 of the semester going over it in torts. How likely does something have to be to be foreseeable to the reasonable person? (Reasonable person is the general legal standard in torts.) While I am skeptical about the viability of Waterbury's claims against NYCB based on the facts thus far, I am not trying to say that what she is alleging didn't happen. Rather, I am pointing out (maybe inarticulately) that all of these repulsive things may be true, but NYCB isn't necessarily civilly liable to her for them. That sounds harsh, but I am approaching this the same way the judge will -- as a dispassionate, objective observer. And of course, even if NYCB isn't liable, that doesn't mean the company doesn't need to take a cold hard look at how it operates and make some big changes.
  14. Yes, I was attempting to explain to (and quoted) a previous poster who was asking about hostile work environment and why Waterbury presumably didn't make that claim. Even negligence requires a legal duty owed by the tortfeasor to the injured party. The elements of negligence are: duty, breach, causation and damages. In your hypothetical, it is established law (both from case law and by statute, in most jurisdictions) that homeowners owe a duty to the public to not allow tree limbs to fall on passers by. Here, I don't see what duty NYCB owed Waterbury based on the facts presented; I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong and there was a duty (and it would be helpful to me if you can provide a cite). Also, Waterbury is also alleging other torts that are not negligence torts (assault, IIED) and require specific intent by the tortfeasor.
  15. Waterbury didn't work for NYCB, so I don't think she would be successful with a hostile work environment claim. It would be different if a company member was making the claims. Even then, to be successful, the plaintiff must establish that the employer knew of the hostile work environment; generally this is accomplished by having complained to HR or the supervisor of someone creating the hostile work environment about specific conduct. I don't think general knowledge by the company that Finlay was showing up to rehearsals drunk and trashing hotel rooms would suffice. (Unless the company knew he tended to grope people while drunk or something like that, which doesn't appear to be the case.) I just read the complaint and I'm still having trouble understanding what NYCB's legal duty to Waterbury was, given that all of this apparently happened after she had left SAB. Generally in a complaint you want to establish the legal duty if it isn't obvious, otherwise the complaint isn't going to survive a motion to dismiss for failure to state a claim (or whatever the New York state equivalent is). It does seem like NYCB was included for the publicity angle; suing Finlay on his own wouldn't have the same "juice" in terms of the media I wouldn't think. NYCB may have wronged her in the moral sense by turning a blind eye to the alleged behavior, but it doesn't automatically follow that she has a legally cognizable claim.
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