{"id":4886,"date":"2025-03-24T18:19:05","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T18:19:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/george-tammy-lawsuit-against-showtime-dismissed-by-judge\/"},"modified":"2025-03-24T18:19:05","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T18:19:05","slug":"george-tammy-lawsuit-against-showtime-dismissed-by-judge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/george-tammy-lawsuit-against-showtime-dismissed-by-judge\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018George & Tammy\u2019 Lawsuit Against Showtime Dismissed By Judge"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tS<\/span>howtime has won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit that claimed George & Tammy<\/em> \u2013 a television series about country music legends George Jones<\/a> and Tammy Wynette<\/a> \u2013 unfairly turned her late husband into \u201cthe villain.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe case, filed last year, alleged that Showtime\u2019s series conveyed a \u201cnegative and disparaging portrayal\u201d of the late George Richey<\/strong>, a songwriter and producer to whom Wynette was married for decades after her split from Jones.<\/p>\n

\n\tBut in a decision Tuesday, a federal judge ruled that Richey\u2019s widow (Sheila Slaughter Richey<\/strong>) lacked the grounds to file the case. The show might have been \u201cunflattering\u201d to him, the judge said, but it did not meet the legal requirements for her to sue Showtime for \u201cunjust enrichment.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cNormally, a plaintiff who cries unjust enrichment must have actually enriched somebody,\u201d Judge Stephanos Bibas wrote.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn his ruling, the judge said Sheila\u2019s dispute was really with Wynette\u2019s daughter, Georgette Jones<\/strong>, who had licensed her memoir to Showtime as the basis for the series. But he suggested she had instead sued the network because of the potential for a larger judgment.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSheila could have sued Georgette for breaking their agreement,\u201d Bibas wrote. \u201cBut George & Tammy<\/em> had been a hit, and Showtime had presumably profited handsomely from Georgette\u2019s breach. So instead of going after Georgette for whatever damages her breach caused, Sheila set out for bigger game.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tReleased in December 2022, George & Tammy<\/em> was well-received by critics \u2014 particularly Michael Shannon<\/strong> and Jessica Chastain<\/strong>\u2019s respective portrayals of Jones and Wynette. Both were later nominated for Emmy Awards for their performances.<\/p>\n

\n\tSheila filed her case in January 2024, claiming the show had depicted Richey as a \u201cdevious husband\u201d who engaged in physical abuse, facilitated Wynette\u2019s drug addiction, and committed \u201cfinancial and managerial manipulation\u201d of the late country icon.<\/p>\n

\n\tAccusations about a harmful depiction of a real-world person would typically be filed as a defamation lawsuit, but Sheila didn\u2019t sue Showtime for defamation. And that\u2019s likely because she couldn\u2019t: Under U.S. law, defamation cases can only be filed by living people, not on behalf of the deceased.<\/p>\n

\n\tInstead, Sheila claimed the show indirectly violated a 2019 legal settlement in which Georgette promised to not make disparaging statements about Richey. Since George & Tammy<\/em> was based on Georgette\u2019s 2011 memoir about her parents, the lawsuit alleged that Showtime had been unjustly enriched by Georgette\u2019s decision to violate her agreement with Sheila.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn Tuesday\u2019s decision, Judge Bibas rejected that legal workaround. He ruled that Sheila had simply not met the strict requirements to sue the networek for unjust enrichment \u2014 saying that Showtime might have profited from the show, but not at Sheila\u2019s expense.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe crux of Sheila\u2019s claim is that Georgette wronged her by breaching the non-disparagement agreement and Showtime profited from that wrong,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cBut that is not enough for unjust enrichment. Instead, a plaintiff must usually allege that she <\/em>is the one who enriched the defendant.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tSheila didn\u2019t hand over any money to the network, Bibas said, or perform any uncompensated services. And he stressed that Showtime had also not violated any of her intellectual property rights, since she did not \u201cown the story that Showtime used.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe network\u2019s right to turn George and Tammy\u2019s story into a TV show came from the First Amendment and from buying the rights to dramatize Georgette\u2019s book,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cSo Showtime did not exploit Sheila\u2019s property rights by making the series.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThough he rejected the current lawsuit, the judge gave Sheila a chance to refile an updated version next month, suggesting that additional evidence might help show that the network facilitated <\/em>Georgette\u2019s decision to breach her agreement. He gave her until April 18 to file the new complaint against Showtime. <\/p>\n

\n\tAttorneys for both sides did not immediately return requests for comment on Monday.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Showtime has won a ruling dismissing a lawsuit that claimed George & Tammy \u2013 a television series about country music legends George Jones and Tammy Wynette \u2013 unfairly […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4887,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2059,2641,423,303,5220,5219],"class_list":["post-4886","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-dismissed","tag-george","tag-judge","tag-lawsuit","tag-showtime","tag-tammy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}