Lawyer Reveals Likelihood Of Blac Chyna Winning Her Appeal In Messy Kardashian Legal Case
Blac Chyna is not quite finished with her legal battle against the Kardashians.
The model, who filed a $100 million defamation lawsuit against the famous family, accused them of conspiring to cancel her E! reality show, "Rob & Chyna," leading to a significant loss of income. "When they got my No. 1 hit show killed back in January 2017, that not only hurt me financially and emotionally, that hurt my beautiful KIDS ... What they did was so wrong," Chyna said in a statement posted on Twitter.
After two weeks of battling it out in court, the Los Angeles jury sided with the Kardashians, meaning Chyna didn't receive any damages. The jurors decided that the family did not deliberately derail her career, nor did they conspire with the network to cancel her show. They did, however, acknowledge the Kardashians had no place in telling E! executives about Rob and Chyna's relationship issues, but believe that their efforts "had no substantial effect on Chyna's contract," per AP News. Chyna's lawyer Lynne Ciani told the outlet that "the jury found that Chyna had not physically abused Rob Kardashian," and that "the jury found that all four defendants had intentionally interfered with her contract with the E! Network," so they're moving forward with an appeal.
But, while Chyna's well within her rights to push through with her dispute, a legal expert told Nicki Swift that a win is a shot in the dark.
Blac Chyna's chance of winning her appeal doesn't look good
Blac Chyna may move forward with her appeal, but she will have a hard time proving her case, according to Beverly Hills entertainment attorney Mitra Ahouraian. The lawyer, who represents actors, writers, producers, directors, and musicians, exclusively told Nicki Swift that Chyna will have to pull out all the stops to prove the Kardashians' statement is false.
"The standard for defamation is pretty hard to meet for celebrities. Not only does the statement have to be false, but Blac Chyna has to prove that the statement was published with actual malice, which means either knowing it was untrue, or having a reckless disregard for whether it was true or not," Ahouraian said. "The jury found that the defendants had reasonable grounds to believe the statements they made were true — namely, they had no reason to believe that Rob was lying when he said she beat him — and that does not meet the standard for defamation of a celebrity."
Ahouraian added that Chyna will also have to provide evidence that the verdict brought her harm for the court to even consider her appeal request. "Winning an appeal is not easy. It's not about the jury getting it wrong. You have to prove that the court made a legal mistake that caused you harm," she added. "That's going to be hard for Blac Chyna to do and it's doubtful she will win on appeal."