Netflix still trying, failing to make its Baby Reindeer lawsuit go away

This is per Deadline, which reports that the streamer has had an appeal to get a long-brewing court case against it thrown out denied on procedural grounds. Which means that, after a year of being put on hold, the legal case of Fiona Muir-Harvey, the woman who says Gadd based the show’s stalker character, Martha, off of her—and in enough detail that internet detectives were able to track her down and identify her—is once again in motion.

Given the series’ autobiographical nature, with Gadd, specifically, playing a fictionalized version of himself, it did not take those internet sleuths a long time to find Muir-Harvey, who’s since had a number of legally stated complaints with how Jessica Gunning’s Martha reflects on her. (She has, in fact, called the show “the biggest lie in television history,” noting that while Martha in the series was “a twice-convicted stalker who was sentenced to five years in prison,” Muir-Harvey has reportedly never been convicted of stalking—something Netflix executives themselves wound up admitting, clarifying that the person in question was instead subject to a court order.) And while a judge, back in 2024, did toss out Muir-Harvey’s claims of negligence and gross negligence against the streamer, he allowed her defamation claims to move toward trial, specifically noting that starting the series with the words “This is a true story”—a more definitive phrasing than the “based on a true story” that Gadd used for the stage play version of Baby Reindeer—opened the streamer up to a higher standard of accuracy. 

The case was headed for a potential trial date in May of 2025, but Netflix successfully got an appeals court to shut it down; that same court, though, has now ruled that it lacks jurisdiction over the appeal, and is ordering Netflix to either withdraw the request or explain why the court should have oversight over the case. And while Netflix declined to comment on the legal setback, Muir-Harvey’s lawyer has not: He issued a statement this week asserting that “Netflix is doing everything to avoid a trial of this action. First, it made a motion before the federal district court which it lost. Then it appealed that decision, which was dismissed. Notwithstanding its efforts, there will be a trial in this action where its wrongdoing will be front and center before a jury.”