Lawyer asserts Sheridan feared reprisal

Nicollette Sheridan is suing 'Desperate Housewives' creator Marc Cherry and Touchstone Television for wrongful termination, charging that her character was killed off from the show in retaliation for her having complained about the incident.Nicollette Sheridan's entertainment attorney testified Tuesday that the actress feared she would be dropped from the show if she made "waves" about a confrontation in which "Desperate Housewives" creator Marc Cherry struck her on the side of the head during a script dispute.Neil Meyer said in the Los Angeles Superior Court trial that after the Sept. 24, 2008 incident, Sheridan called him and was "very upset." Meyer said that he called Howard Davine in the business-affairs department of production company Touchstone Television to inform him of the incident."I told him Nicollette was extremely upset and it must have been pretty bad because she wouldn't just call me," Meyer said. "I said we weren't looking for ABC or Disney to do anything," adding that she wanted to put it behind her but that he felt that it was something that Davine should "know about."Sheridan is suing Cherry and Touchstone for wrongful termination, charging that her character was killed off from the show in retaliation for her having complained about the incident. Cherry said he gave Sheridan a "tap" on the side of the head, and it was part of direction for an upcoming scene. He also said that plans were well under way before the incident to kill off her character, and that it was largely done for creative and budgetary reasons. Sheridan was informed in February 2009 that she was being dropped from the show.Meyer testified Tuesday that Sheridan "was very concerned about her job. She told me Mr. Cherry was a very vindictive man." Cherry's attorney, Adam Levin, objected to the "vindictive" characterization, and jurors were told to not consider it in the record.Davine sent Meyer a letter dated Dec. 5, 2008 informing him that the studio's human resources department had concluded an investigation with the finding that Sheridan "was not mistreated" and noting that Cherry had apologized for "inadvertently upsetting her." But Meyer said he never responded to the letter to challenge the finding, saying that "it was a self-serving letter and I don't respond to self-serving letters."Nevertheless, Meyer said on the stand that he didn't believe he mentioned Sheridan's fears of "retaliation" to Davine. He said he did tell Davine that "Nicole wanted to get through this and get back to work.""I wanted to protect Nicollette because I was afraid that if we pursued this (at the time) her job would be in jeopardy," Meyer said.In cross-examining Meyer, Levin spent a great deal of time challenging his recollection of events, suggesting that his memory of what was said back then was suddenly much better than it was when he gave a deposition in the case.Sheridan's attorneys also gave a glimpse of studio accounting during Tuesday's proceedings.Sheridan was a profit participant in the series, but her litigator Mark Baute showed a profit statement from the studio showing that even though the show's revenues exceeded $1 billion, her return in one time period after she left the show was $62,590. It was unclear what her percentage was or the time period it covered.Later in the day, an expert witness for Sheridan's team testified that it was highly unusual for a comedy to kill off one of its main characters. Richard Olshansky, a business affairs executive who has worked at Endeavor and NBC Universal, said that producers "tend not to want to mess" with a successful show.But it's likely that Cherry's team will try to argue that opposite, and are likely to bring in their own expert to provide examples from the comedy and drama realms, including "Knots Landing," a show on which Sheridan was a regular. Contact Ted Johnson at ted.johnson@variety.com