Bill Cosby's Wife Gets To Answer Questions Under Oath About What A Creep Bill Cosby Is
hand to god, there is a song on this album called 'what ya think 'bout lickin' my chicken?'
Remember how we rang out 2015 celebrating that finally finally finafuckinglly Bill Cosby was facing criminal charges for his decades-long stint of sexually assaulting women? Oh, 2015, you were a trash fire of a year, but that was pretty great.
We have been so busy celebrating Cosby's possible downfall in the criminal arena that we forgot that a civil defamation case filed by seven of the women Cosby ALLEGEDLY WE SAID ALLEGEDLY CALL OFF YOUR LAWYER DOGS, PUDDING POP MAN assaulted is making its way through the courts as well. (The women are stuck suing Cosby for defamation because the statute of limitations had passed for suing for the assaults.) How did Cosby defame them? By basically calling them liars for coming forward about the assault. It might be a bit of a reach, lawsuit-wise, but we do not care because we are in favor of one million lawsuits against Bill Cosby. (Cosby also countersued the women, claiming they defamed him by pointing out he is basically a rape machine, but we're not even going to get into that here except to say fuck that guy.)
So the plaintiffs in the defamation lawsuit have been trying to depose Cosby's wife because you know she knows shit, right? There is just no way your husband sexually assaults 50+ women and you don't even have a goddamn inkling. But Cosby's lawyers said nope, you cannot talk to Camille Cosby because it would be really hard on her and also too she is married to Mr. Druggy McRaperson and also too her lawyers watched Law and Order and you can't make a woman testify against her husband nuh-uh. On New Year's Eve, however, the judge in the defamation suit pretty much laughed at that and said naw mang, Camille is for sure going to get deposed. But what about Law and Order and that whole spousal privilege dealio?? Let's lawsplain!
See, in Massachusetts, where this lawsuit is venued, as we in the lawyering business like to say, it isn't called spousal privilege. Instead, it's spousal disqualification. That isn't just terrible overly legalistic writing. It actually means something that is not so great for Bill and Camille. See, the judge ruled that the Massachusetts law isn't about privilege, really -- it's about admissibility. In other words, she doesn't have some absolute right not to be questioned under oath about her husband's nasty habit of drugging and assaulting ladies. Here's how this works: Even though that material from her deposition might not be admissible at trial ultimately, it could lead to other testimony that is admissible. Suck on that, Cosbys. This also means, however, that news reports that say Camille Cosby is going to be "forced to testify" against ol' Bill are overselling the story. She has to sit for the deposition, but nothing (yet) says any of it could ever be used at trial or that she would have to take the stand at a trial.
Camille also tried to say that appearing at a deposition would just be really really hard on her because ... well, she didn't really have any reasons, and the court really did not like that.
[I]t is beyond dispute that Mrs. Cosby bears the burden of demonstrating an undue burden that justifies quashing her subpoena. By asserting that her role as defendant's business manager has “no bearing on any damages Plaintiffs’ claim to have suffered” and that “nothing in the [December 15, 2014] statement claims to have any special insight into the claims at issue before this Court,”, she has impliedly sought to shift this burden to plaintiffs, asking them to justify her deposition. [I]t is not plaintiffs’ burden to establish why the subpoena should not be quashed; instead, it is Mrs. Cosby’s burden to show why it should.
Those are not the words of a happy judge. They tend to get annoyed when your legal arguments consist of "don't wanna."
If you'd like to read the entire judicial smackdown, we've helpfully embedded the whole thing for you below, because we are helpful like that. Consider us your premier source for any legal filings that bash Bill Cosby.
