The parents and sister of Halyna Hutchins, the cinematographer killed when a prop gun wielded by Alec Baldwin discharged on the “Rust” movie set in New Mexico in 2021, lost a round in court when a judge removed the weapons provider and his company as defendants in their lawsuit against multiple defendants, including the actor.
Hutchins’ mother, Olga Solovey; father, Anatolii Androsovych; and younger sister, Svetlana Zemko, sued in February 2023 in Los Angeles Superior Court. All three are Ukrainian citizens, living near Kiev. The suit was brought just months after a separate legal action filed by Hutchins’ husband, Matthew Hutchins, was settled out of court for an undisclosed amount, with a stipulation that the filming of “Rust” would continue with the widower serving as a producer.
Attorneys for weapons provider Seth Kenney and his company, PDQ Arm and Prop LLC, maintained that a California court had no jurisdiction over their clients. During a hearing Monday, Judge Rolf Treu agreed, finding that the two defendants had not “purposefully availed themselves to the benefits of California with respect to this matter.”
Kenney lives in Arizona and his business has headquarters locations in Arizona and also in New Mexico, where the Hutchins shooting occurred, Treu noted.
“Defendant Seth Kenney contends he did not have any contact with California at the time plaintiffs’ alleged injuries occurred,” the judge wrote.
The 65-year-old Baldwin has repeatedly denied culpability in Hutchins’ death, which occurred Oct. 21, 2021, inside a church building on the Western set of “Rust” outside Santa Fe. Baldwin was wielding a prop gun, helping set up camera angles for an upcoming scene, when the weapon discharged, killing Hutchins, 42, and wounding director Joel Souza, now 50.
The plaintiffs’ attorneys maintain in their court papers that the “low-budget mold” of the film included hiring inexperienced crew members to manage the weapons that were to be used, noting that armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was 24 years old at the time and had worked as an armorist on only one previous film. Gutierrez-Reed is now 26 and her trial on involuntary manslaughter and tampering with evidence charges is ongoing in Santa Fe. In testimony in that trial Monday, Kenney denied that he ever sent any live ammunition to the set of “Rust.”
Baldwin has insisted that he was told the gun wasn’t loaded when it was handed to him. He also contends that while he pulled back the hammer of the weapon, he never pulled the trigger. The actor was initially charged along with Gutierrez-Reed last year, before the special prosecutors who took over the case dismissed his charges. Months later, a grand jury indicted him on involuntary manslaughter.