Samira Said’s legal team asked Los Angeles Superior Court on Friday, Sept. 4, to dismiss Matt Gutman from her wrongful-termination lawsuit, making Matt Gutman ABC lawsuit dismissed the latest change in the case. ABC and The Walt Disney Co. remain defendants.
The filing came after Said had initially named Gutman in the Aug. 14 lawsuit. Her complaint says he made a sexualized insinuation about her and describes conduct she said turned a work conversation into an assessment of a woman’s body and looks.
Samira Said and the Aug. 14 filing
Said, a former ABC News producer, said she worked in the ABC News LA bureau from May 2021 to March 2025. Her lawsuit says she was required to keep working while on protected leave after severe psychological symptoms in 2022.
She said she was assigned to travel to Uvalde, Texas, to cover the aftermath of the school shooting at Robb Elementary, where 19 students and two teachers were killed. Said said she tested positive for COVID before that assignment and experienced symptoms during her time in Uvalde.
A psychiatrist granted her medical leave from August 2022 through January 2023. She said she was cleared to return in January 2023 with reasonable accommodations designed to let her perform the essential functions of the job while avoiding re-exposure to trauma triggers.
Matt Gutman and the complaint
In the complaint, Said said Gutman initiated a conversation on assignment in which he rated a female correspondent’s appearance, reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes. She said the male crew joined in, kept assessing the woman’s body and looks in her presence, and tried to draw her into the exchange.
Said said she declined and told them the conversation was inappropriate. She also said Gutman made a sexualized insinuation that she must have an after-hours date, and that the remark was audible to others. Her legal team’s filing asking to dismiss him did not explain the request.
ABC, Disney and the case
ABC and The Walt Disney Co. remain in the lawsuit, so the filing narrows the defendant list without ending the case. Said alleged that ABC denied her request for reasonable accommodations and that former Los Angeles bureau chief David Herndon told her she could not return unless she came back without restrictions and with full-week availability.
She said she was later demoted to only weekend desk shifts around March 2023. In March 2025, ABC fired her after she was covering a hazardous weather event and sustained a workplace injury when heavy equipment struck her foot; she said the injury caused a bone contusion, and a Disney physician later determined it did not require leave.
For now, the practical change is simple: Gutman is the defendant the filing seeks to remove, while ABC and The Walt Disney Co. still face the wrongful-termination lawsuit. The court filing changes who must answer the complaint, but the case itself remains active.
