Panish, Shea, Boyle to represent husband of slain cinematographer

Panish, Shea, Boyle and Ravipudi LLP is the first firm to announce it is representing possible plaintiffs in connection with Alec Baldwin’s accidental shooting of two co-workers on a movie set.

Attorneys for several people on the set — an armorer, assistant director, a script supervisor and the production company — have made public announcements.

Marc H. Simon of Fox Rothschild LLP in New York, an entertainment attorney who represented Baldwin in a civil dispute in January, declined to comment on Thursday.

Also Thursday, the amount of insurance reportedly purchased for the filming of “Rust” in New Mexico drew some questions.

The film’s budget was only $7 Million, according to IMDb, while liability insurance for Rust Movie Productions LLC was $6 million, according to a copy of the policy statement published by TMZ.

“They were woefully underinsured and when you think about them having Alec Baldwin on the set and if he would have suffered catastrophic injury, $6 Million is nothing compared to what his family would have sought,” said plaintiff’s attorney Micha Star Liberty of the Liberty Law Office.

TMZ published a Certificate of Liability of Insurance form that showed a general liability coverage limited to $1 million per occurrence. There is also a commercial umbrella policy — which is a supplement to the general liability coverage — for an additional $5 million.

Panish, Shea, Boyle and Ravipudi — the firm that announced it is representing Latham & Watkins LLP attorney Matt Hutchins, husband of cinematographer Halyna Hutchins who was killed in the on-set shooting — was lead counsel in a $2.2 billion settlement last month of some 35,000 claims over a gas leak in Porter Ranch.

“We can confirm we have been hired. Brian Panish, Kevin Boyle, and Jesse Creed are working on the case,” partner Kevin Boyle said in an email Thursday.

Halyna Hutchins was killed Oct. 21 when Baldwin unknowingly fired a bullet from a Colt .45 during a rehearsal on the set in New Mexico. Hutchins is survived by her husband and 9-year-old son, Andros.

“I would want to know who was responsible for what and did they fulfill their obligations legally?” Liberty commented. “This was a complete dereliction of duty.” S

The production company has hired production company Jenner & Block to investigate the circumstances that led to the shooting, in which director Joel Souza was also wounded.

Principals such as the cinematographer and director on a movie set are contract workers, so workers’ compensation would not apply to them or their survivors, according to the New Mexico State Workers Compensation website.

It says, “All employees working in the state must be covered by workers’ comp insurance, except for household workers, real estate salespeople, federal employees, and independent contractors.”

Baldwin and others involved with the movie have said they did not know the gun was loaded and the shooting of Hutchins and Souza was purely accidental.

Jason Bowles of the Bowles Law Firm in Albuquerque, New Mexico. who represents Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, the on-set armorer, said on national television Wednesday that his team believes the reason a live round was in that particular firearm was sabotage and it was not his client’s fault.

“She inspected the rounds that she loaded into the firearms that day. She always inspected the rounds,” Bowles said in an emailed statement. “She did again right before handing the firearm to [assistant director Dave Halls] by spinning the cylinder and showing him all of the rounds and then handing him the firearm.”

Halls’ attorney, Lisa A. Torraco of Albuquerque, said this week it was not the assistant director’s job to check the gun.

Attorney Liberty commented, “Sabotage or not there should have been people checking and double checking rounds in the guns to ensure they were safe. some sort of accountability on the set.”