Dan Schneider Can Proceed With ‘Quiet on Set’ Defamation Suit, Judge Rules

Dan Schneider’s defamation suit against the makers of the bombshell docuseries, Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV, will be allowed to continue, a California judge ruled late last week.

On Friday, Judge Ashfaq G. Chowdhury rejected a motion brought by the plaintiffs — led by Warner Bros. Discovery, Sony Pictures Television, and directors Mary Robertson and Emma Schwartz — to toss Schneider’s lawsuit under California’s anti-SLAPP (strategic lawsuits against public participation) laws. Those laws are meant to deter lawsuits that could impede on free speech, especially on matters of public concern.

Judge Chowdhury, however, ruled that Schneider’s case was not brought “on frivolous grounds, simply to harass defendants,” adding that it was “not the type of baseless lawsuit… that the anti-Slapp statute was designed to weed out.”

The judge also said: “He’s suing Defendants about a documentary they made about him, that focuses on his activities, and, which a reasonable viewer might conclude makes damning implications about his conduct.”

Schneider sued the makers of Quest on Set back in May. The five-part series featured many former child actors sharing allegations of abuse and misconduct while working on popular Nickelodeon shows during the Nineties and 2000s, many of which Schneider created and oversaw. There were several allegations leveled at Schneider, including gender discrimination, overlooking actors of color, making inappropriate jokes, and asking employees for massage. (Schneider acknowledged and addressed these claims in an apology after Quiet on Set aired.)

The show also featured allegations tied to two convicted sex offenders who worked on some of these programs, Brian Peck and Jason Handy. No such allegations were ever leveled against Schneider, but he claimed that Quiet on Set, both the series and trailer, falsely implied that he was a sexual abuser. The original lawsuit described the series as a “hit job” and claimed the defendants had “destroyed Schneider’s reputation and legacy through the false statements and implications.”

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While the defendants, in their motion to dismiss, argued that Quiet on Set did not accuse Schneider of sexual abuse, Judge Chowdhury said Schneider’s lawyers “persuasively” argued that the “defamation can be implied, that the trailer and documentary state or imply Schneider sexually abused children who worked on his show and that Schneider was a child sexual abuser, and how the ordinary viewer understands the trailer and documentary to be defamatory.”

Lawyers for Schneider and the defendants did not immediately return Rolling Stone’s request for comment.

Interestingly, the defendants nearly succeeded in getting the lawsuit thrown out on anti-SLAPP grounds in an earlier ruling. As Variety notes, Judge Chowdhury previously said in a tentative ruling that Schneider had failed to provide “any evidence as to the falsity of the alleged defamation.” That prompted Schneider’s lawyers to issue a declaration on his behalf in which he asserted that he had “never sexually assaulted or sexually abused a child.” 

In the ruling issued last week, Judge Chowdhury said Schneider had since “shown that his claim has at least ‘minimal merit,’” and has “pointed to a substantial amounts of evidence that could support his theory of implied defamation.”