Nicolette Sheridan Granted Desperate Housewives Retrial

Desperate Housewives is all but over, capping off its eighth and final season in May, but legal wrangling between the show and ousted star Nicolette Sheridan has been going on for what seems like forever.

And the off-screen drama is set to continue, with a lawsuit filed by Nicolette Sheridan against the network on which the show runs, ABC, again set to move forward. Sheridan initially filed a $20 million lawsuit way back in April of 2010, alleging show creator Marc Cherry had physically assaulted her on the set of Desperate Housewives.

The actress, who was written off during the fifth season in an electrical accident, withdrew her claim of abuse early on in legal proceedings, but maintains that her contract was terminated wrongfully and seeks several million dollars in compensation.

The lawsuit brought by Sheridan has changed and Cherry is no longer named in it, but her battle with the network continues. After a jury was deadlocked in the case, a mistrial was declared on April 16th, but a judge denied ABC’s motion to dismiss the case. According to OTRC, it appears that a settlement between involved parties is unlikely before Sheridan’s case goes to trial:

“A judge denied ABC’s motion to dismiss the sole remaining count of wrongful termination and scheduled a conference hearing for the case… Sheridan’s attorney Mark Baute accused ABC’s attorney Adam Levin of playing the case in the media and requested the judge to sanction him in $35,000. The judge denied the sanctions… The judge urged both sides to seriously try to reach a settlement before the retrial, keeping in mind that a vast majority of the jury members sided with Sheridan.”

A hearing in Nicolette Sheridan’s lawsuit is scheduled for September, due to “cycles” in the entertainment industry.