Ukrainian relatives of “Rust” cinematographer Halyna Hutchins have renewed their legal fight against actor Alec Baldwin and other producers following her 2021 death on the set of the low-budget Western.
Hutchins' mother, Olga Solovey; father, Anatolii Androsovych; and his sister Svetlana Zemko, who live near the Ukrainian capital of kyiv, last week filed a civil negligence lawsuit in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
The June 5 lawsuit contends that Hutchins' death was caused by the reckless behavior of producer and star Baldwin, as well as the film's producers, production managers and several crew members, who were named as defendants.
Baldwin was pointing his Colt .45 revolver at Hutchins, 42, who was standing less than four feet away, when the gun went off, authorities said. Baldwin did not realize that the gun's chamber contained a real bullet. Film industry protocols prohibit the presence of live ammunition on sets, and the assistant director of “Rust” had announced that the gun was “cold,” meaning it contained no ammunition.
Hutchins died from his injuries. The film's director, Joel Souza, was wounded by the same bullet but survived.
“The fact that live ammunition was allowed on a movie set, that guns and ammunition were left unattended… and that defendant Baldwin inexplicably pointed and fired a gun at Halyna Hutchins, makes this a case in which injury or death was much more than just a possibility, it was a probable outcome,” Solovey’s lawsuit says.
The new lawsuit comes a month before Baldwin goes to trial on a charge of involuntary manslaughter in New Mexico's First Judicial District Court. The actor was indicted in January on a single felony count. He has pleaded not guilty.
Last month, a New Mexico judge rejected attempts by Baldwin's lawyers to dismiss the indictment. If convicted, the actor faces up to 18 months in prison.
Los Angeles victims' rights attorney Gloria Allred filed the new lawsuit on behalf of Hutchins' relatives in Eastern Europe.
Allred's other client on “Rust,” script supervisor Mamie Mitchell, joined Solovey's suit as a plaintiff. Mitchell was just four feet away from Baldwin during the October 21, 2021 rehearsal.
Baldwin, through a spokesman, declined to comment.
Lawyers representing Rust Movie Productions were not immediately available Thursday.
Although the accident occurred near Santa Fe, Allred had previously filed the Solovey lawsuit against Baldwin and the producers of “Rust” in Los Angeles Superior Court. That lawsuit was recently dropped as part of the effort to move the headquarters to New Mexico, Allred said.
The change came after a Los Angeles judge ruled that some key defendants in the case lacked “minimal contacts” in California, Allred said, making it virtually impossible to litigate the case against those defendants in California.
The attorney did not specify which defendants would have been excluded if the case had taken place in California. Allred said Baldwin was not among them. Baldwin's production company, El Dorado Pictures, is based in California.
Halyna Hutchins, her son Andros and her husband Matthew Hutchins.
(Hutchins Family/Panish | Shea | Boyle | Ravipudi LLP)
A separate wrongful death lawsuit filed by Hutchins' husband, Matthew Hutchins, on behalf of their son, Andros, was settled in late 2022.
As part of that deal, Matthew Hutchins became executive producer of the film “Rust,” which was completed last year in Montana. The monetary amount of the settlement with him has not been disclosed.
Alec Baldwin faces trial in July on manslaughter charges in the 2021 shooting death of Halyna Hutchins.
(Seth Wenig/Associated Press)
Originally from Ukraine, Hutchins moved to the United States to pursue her film career, which was taking off at the time of the accident.
She graduated in 2015 from the American Film Institute Conservatory and had been selected as one of American Cinematographer's Rising Stars two years before her death.
Members of her European family have said they have been devastated by the loss of Halyna Hutchins. Solovey, her mother, testified during a court hearing in April that life had been “extremely difficult” since they received the traumatic call from Matthew Hutchins telling them he had died after being shot on the set of the movie.
There have been multiple negligence lawsuits stemming from the tragedy, including by others who witnessed the shooting while gathering in a log church at Bonanza Creek Ranch.
Solovey, Androsovych and Zemko's civil suit names Rust Movie Productions LLC as defendants; Images of Baldwin's El Dorado; producers Ryan Donnell Smith and Langley Allen Cheney and their Thomasville Pictures LLC; producers Anjul Nigam, Nathan Klingher, Ryan Winterstern, Matthew Delpiano and Emily Salveson; and line producers at 3rd Shift Media in Georgia.
Gunsmith Hannah Gutierrez, who was convicted of involuntary manslaughter, and production assistant David Halls, who pleaded no contest to negligent use of a weapon, were named as defendants in the lawsuit.
