OAN Staff Lillian Mann
8:23 PM – Friday, April 17, 2026
A Los Angeles Superior Court judge has ruled that Alec Baldwin will proceed to trial after a “Rust” crew member filed a civil lawsuit stemming from the fatal on-set shooting of a cinematographer in October 2021, when a gun Baldwin was holding discharged.
The Friday ruling focused on a lawsuit filed by Serge Svetnoy, a lighting technician who was on set during the incident. Svetnoy has expressed the emotional distress he has dealt with following the negligence by Baldwin and the rest of the film’s production crew.
Though Svetnoy was not physically injured, he filed assault claims alleging that he felt a “whoosh” from the gunshot and a loud bang.
“Mr. Baldwin is the last line of defense,” John Upton, Svetnoy’s attorney, argued at the hearing. “Guns generally do not shoot themselves.”
“We’re pleased with the court’s decision,” Upton said outside of court. “And we’ll see where it goes from here.”
Svetnoy first sued Baldwin back in 2021, less than a month after cinematographer Halyna Hutchins’ death. According to his lawsuit, Baldwin was not supposed to be firing a gun in the scene they filmed that day.
“Simply put, there was no reason for a live bullet to be placed in that .45 Colt revolver or to be present anywhere on the Rust set, and the presence of a bullet in a revolver posed a lethal threat to everyone in its vicinity,” his lawsuit read at the time.
“The scene did not call for Defendant Baldwin to shoot the Colt Revolver, which should not have contained any live ammunition,” the lawsuit added.
In January 2023, a year after the fatal shooting, Santa Fe County District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies and special prosecutor Andrea Reeb announced that Baldwin and Rust armorer Hannah Gutierrez-Reed would each face two counts of involuntary manslaughter in connection with the October 2021 on-set shooting that killed Hutchins.
The next year in January 2024, a New Mexico grand jury indicted Baldwin for involuntary manslaughter after forensic analysis found the trigger was indeed pulled.
Meanwhile, Baldwin and his legal team sought to have the involuntary manslaughter charges dismissed ahead of the July 2024 trial. However, the case was ultimately dismissed with prejudice in July 2024, when Judge Mary Marlowe Sommer threw out the charges mid-trial, citing issues related to withheld evidence concerning the ammunition.
“The late discovery of this evidence during trial has impeded the effective use of evidence in such a way that it has impacted the fundamental fairness of the proceedings,” Judge Sommer explained at the time.
The “Rust” production has argued that the case should be handled through the workers’ compensation system. However, the judge rejected that claim, finding that the company failed to demonstrate such coverage was in place at the time.
Baldwin has continued to maintain that he was unaware the firearm he was holding was loaded—an assertion that would represent a breach of industry safety protocols—and that he did not pull the trigger during the rehearsal that led to the incident.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maurice Leiter allowed the case to move forward, formally rejecting arguments from Baldwin and the “Rust” production team that they should not be held liable for the shooting.
“A reasonable jury could find that Mr. Baldwin recklessly disregarded the probability that pointing a gun in the direction of someone, with the finger on the trigger, would cause emotional distress,” the judge wrote.
The trial is scheduled to begin in May, approaching nearly five years since the shooting occurred, with the judge indicating that he is not inclined to grant any further delays.
“I’m a little concerned about this case going on and on and on when it should be coming to a resolution,” Judge Leiter said.
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