Dan Schneider Allowed To Go Forward With Defamation Suit Against 'Quiet On Set'

The former Nickelodeon producer and screenwriter claims that the documentary's "portrayal of Schneider is a hit job.”

Producer and screenwriter Dan Schneider can proceed with his lawsuit against the makers of “Quiet on Set: The Dark Side of Kids TV,” a judge in Los Angeles ruled on Friday.

Schneider’s suit, which was filed in May and listed Warner Bros. Discovery, Maxine Productions, Sony Pictures Television and others as defendants, claims that “‘Quiet on Set’s’ portrayal of Schneider is a hit job.” The five-part docuseries, which aired in March, investigated allegations of abuse and hostile working conditions that occurred at the popular children’s network Nickelodeon.

The defendants in the suit filed a motion in June claiming that Schneider’s lawsuit violates the anti-SLAPP statute, a special motion to dismiss a lawsuit that has been alleged to be an attack on free speech. (SLAPP stands for “strategic lawsuits against public participation.”)

However, Superior Court Judge Ashfaq G. Chowdhury ruled against the defendants’ motion. Chowdhury claimed Schneider’s suit had not been brought “on frivolous grounds, simply to harass defendants.”

Rather, Chowdhury ruled, Schneider is “suing Defendants about a documentary they made about him, that focuses on his activities, and, which a reasonable viewer might conclude makes damning implications about his conduct. This is all to say that this is not the type of baseless lawsuit ― one without “minimal merit” that the anti-SLAPP statute was designed to weed out.”