Judge Allows Rust Gaffer’s Civil Claims Against Baldwin to Proceed to Trial

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter ruled Friday that Serge Svetnoy’s civil case against Alec Baldwin can go to trial, keeping alive claims for negligence, intentional infliction of emotional distress and punitive damages while dismissing an assault claim. If the two sides do not settle, the case is set for Oct. 12.

Svetnoy, a gaffer on Rust, filed the lawsuit in November 2021 after the fatal shooting on Oct. 21, 2021, at Bonanza Creek Ranch in Santa Fe County, New Mexico. The complaint says he was narrowly missed when Baldwin’s prop revolver fired during a rehearsal, killing cinematographer Halyna Hutchins, 42, and wounding director Joel Souza.

The ruling shifts the fight from criminal liability to civil accountability, where Svetnoy will need to show that unsafe conditions on set, and the handling of the firearm, fell below the standard of care owed to the crew. Baldwin has denied that the set was unsafe and has said he did not know the gun contained a live round. His lawyers have argued that he followed instructions to point the weapon at Hutchins and that it discharged accidentally.

That distinction matters. Baldwin’s involuntary manslaughter case was dismissed in July 2024 after the court agreed prosecutors had withheld evidence, ending the criminal case without a verdict on the facts of the shooting. Civil court offers a different test, with a lower burden of proof and broader room to examine who had responsibility for safety on the Rust set, from weapons handling to the chain of commands during rehearsal.

The broader fallout has continued to reach beyond Baldwin himself. In June 2025, three other Rust crew members reached a separate civil settlement over claims of emotional distress and allegations that producers failed to follow industry safety rules. In another branch of the case, armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed was convicted of involuntary manslaughter and completed an 18-month sentence in May 2025.

For film workers, the trial could do more than assign personal blame. It may expose how gun protocols were implemented, who verified the weapon, and whether producers and crew had the safeguards needed to prevent a live round from reaching a set in the first place.