Judge declares motion to dismiss Garth Brooks’ Mississippi lawsuit ‘moot’

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - A motion to dismiss a lawsuit filed by a Country Music artist superstar against his former hairdresser has been deemed moot.

Garth Brooks filed a suit against his former hairdresser in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi in September to prevent the woman from going public with allegations that he raped and sexually assaulted her years earlier.

The woman, who WLBT is only identifying as Jane Roe, later filed a complaint in California state court outlining her accusations against the artist. In November, that case was moved to the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California.

In the Mississippi case, Roe filed a motion to dismiss back in November. On May 1, Judge Henry Wingate found the motion moot.

According to U.S. Law Essentials, a judge can find that a motion is moot if it is no longer relevant. In this case, it could mean that the suit has essentially ended.

It’s unclear how that decision will impact the California case, which has been stayed pending the outcome in Mississippi.

According to a December 11 order from that court, Brooks was ordered to inform it of any rulings in the Mississippi case within 10 days of those rulings being handed down. As of Sunday, no filings in the case indicate the California court had been notified.

For his part, Brooks had filed a motion to dismiss the California suit in November, saying Federal Rules of Civil Procedure required her to file a counterclaim in Mississippi, where the initial case was submitted.

“Roe’s claims are compulsory counterclaims because they turn on the same facts that will determine the outcome of the Mississippi Action,” he wrote. “Thus, the court should either dismiss Roe’s claims with leave to refile them... in the Mississippi Action or stay this case pending further proceedings in the Southern District of Mississippi.”

Brooks filed the suit last year to prevent her from going public with damaging sexual assault and rape allegations, saying the allegations were not true and that Roe was attempting to shake him down for millions because he wouldn’t give her a salaried position with benefits.

Roe, meanwhile, argued she is the true plaintiff in the case, and that Brooks filed the complaint on September 13 as a ploy to silence her.

According to court records, Roe and Brooks had been in settlement talks for months regarding her allegations before Brooks filed suit, and he only did so after failing to meet the deadline to agree to a settlement.

“[Brooks] engaged in settlement negotiations with Mrs. Roe after being informed that failure to do so would lead to the filing of the Draft California Complaint in a court in California. He directed his counsel to disingenuously message that [a] settlement was possible, in order to delay Mrs. Roe’s filing for as long as possible,” Roe’s attorneys wrote. “Brooks now seeks to dismiss or stay the California Action on grounds that the Mississippi Action was filed first.”

“Brooks’ bad faith, sham action was nothing but a forum-shopping maneuver meant to preempt as first-filed Mrs. Roe’s promised California complaint, and to deny her access to an anti-SLAPP statute,” her attorneys wrote.

Anti-SLAPP statutes are designed to prevent individuals from filing suits to “strategically suppress or punish speech he or she dislikes,” the Institute for Free Speech states. According to the Institute, in 2023, Mississippi had no anti-SLAPP laws.

Roe filed her complaint weeks later, on October 3.

In that complaint, Roe alleges, among other things, that while she was at Brooks’ house to style his hair and do his makeup, he walked out of the shower naked and forced her to grab his penis.

She also alleges that Brooks asked her to travel to Los Angeles with him for a Grammy program. After the two arrived, she found out Brooks had booked a hotel suite with one bed for both of them, and that while they were alone in that suite, Brooks raped her.

Brooks claimed he was the victim of a “shakedown,” and that the defendant, “once a trusted member of plaintiff’s professional team... devised a malicious scheme to blackmail [him] into paying her millions of dollars [after] he rejected her request for salaried employment and medical benefits.”

“Roe unquestionably agrees that the two cases are logically intertwined. Her California complaint spends paragraphs discussing the Mississippi Action and its connection with the California Action,” the singer’s attorneys wrote. “The parties should not be required to conduct overlapping discovery here and in the Mississippi Action simultaneously. And this Court should not be thrust into a race with the Southern District of Mississippi to decide the critical factual issues that are dispositive of both actions.”

Brooks initially sought tort claims, monetary damages, and declaratory relief. In an amended complaint on November 1, he sought only damages.

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