By Lizzy McLellan, From The Legal Intelligencer

As he faces a lawsuit by three women in Massachusetts federal court, Bill Cosby has filed a motion to prevent disclosure of information from his 2006 settlement in a Pennsylvania federal court with a plaintiff who alleged the comedian assaulted her.

Cosby filed in Pennsylvania on Tuesday a motion to quash a subpoena, in which he said the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania should not allow disclosure of information related to a lawsuit brought by Andrea Constand, which ended with a confidential settlement in 2006. Massachusetts plaintiffs Tamara Green, Therese Serignese and Linda Traitz served a subpoena on Constand’s lawyer, Dolores M. Troiani, on May 28 seeking any documents that concern or relate to the plaintiffs.

Green, Serignese and Traitz, who each have said Cosby assaulted them in three separate incidents in the 1970s, filed an amended complaint in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts in January. Their suit alleges that Cosby is vicariously liable for defamation because his representatives denied the accusations of assault by the three plaintiffs.

“Here, Mr. Cosby and the other signatories relied on the confidentiality protections contained within the confidential settlement in entering into that agreement and resolving the Constand litigation,” the motion to quash said. “Likewise, the parties to the Constand litigation requested, received and relied on this court’s prior orders maintaining the confidentiality of materials exchanged in the Constand litigation and protecting them from further disclosure. Those agreements and orders should not be set aside lightly.”

In the motion to quash, Cosby said the subpoena should at least be stayed until the court has ruled on his motions to dismiss all three counts in the Massachusetts federal case. If the subpoena is enforced, the motion said, the court should allow Cosby to review and object to any resulting disclosure of materials.

George M. Gowen of Cozen O’Connor is representing Cosby in the Eastern District, and Robert P. LoBue is his counsel in the District of Massachusetts litigation.

Joseph Cammarata and Matthew W. Tievsky of Chaikin, Sherman, Cammarata & Siegel in Washington, D.C., and Andrew Abraham of Abraham & Associates in Boston are representing the plaintiffs.

Cammarata said he plans to file an opposition to Cosby’s motion within 14 days.

“It’s very simple. We want access to the documents pertaining to our clients,” Cammarata said. “For example, Therese Serignese was a Jane Doe in [the Constand] case.”

Gowen, LoBue and Abraham did not respond to calls seeking comment.

In his motion to quash, Cosby argues the plaintiffs present no compelling reason why the confidentiality of the settlement should be set aside.

“The subpoena seeks documents concerning plaintiffs Green, Serignese, Traitz; but the Massachusetts plaintiffs have no basis to seek such discovery from Ms. Troiani,” the motion said. “To the extent the Massachusetts plaintiffs have claims against Mr. Cosby based on alleged assaults in the 1970s, their best hope of establishing that the alleged assaults occurred is their own testimony.”

Cammarata said Serignese having been a Jane Doe in the prior case is just one example of how the documents could be useful.

The motion also said there would be no harm in staying the subpoena until the motions to dismiss are resolved. A hearing is scheduled June 9 in Massachusetts to address those motions, but Cammarata said it will likely be rescheduled for a later date.

The motion also said that, in any event, Cosby should be able to review material before it is released.

“Ms. Troiani’s files may well contain documents that interweave information about the present plaintiffs and other matters that are not called for, and deciding what to produce may require judgment calls on which the parties may not agree,” the motion said. “It is only fair that Mr. Cosby have an opportunity to review and, if appropriate, object to disclosure before it occurs.”

LoBue filed a declaration in support of the motion to quash. He said that during a call with the other parties in the Massachusetts litigation, he set forth that discovery should not begin until the motions to dismiss were resolved, and that parties should first negotiate a confidentiality agreement for the exchange of certain materials. The parties were unable to come to an agreement on when discovery can begin, LoBue said.

According to the amended complaint filed in Massachusetts, Green alleges that Cosby gave her pills during a lunch together, which put her in an altered state, then took her to her home and sexually assaulted her. The complaint said when Green first publicized the incident in a 2005 interview with the Philadelphia Daily News, a representative for Cosby responded that the allegations were “absolutely false,” and that Cosby did not even know Green. This pattern continued following Green’s later interview with Newsweek, the complaint said.

Serignese also alleges in the complaint that in the mid-1970s, after inviting her backstage following a show in Las Vegas, Cosby gave her pills and proceeded to sexually assault and rape her. Serignese told the public about the incident in November 2014, the complaint said, and Cosby’s representative responded by saying the assault never occurred.

Traitz alleges in the complaint that Cosby offered her a ride home from the restaurant where she worked in 1970, but instead took her to a beach and asked her to ingest pills. She denied the pills, the complaint said, and resisted as Cosby “became sexually aggressive” with her. The complaint said she told the public about the incident on her Facebook page in November 2014, after which Cosby’s representative said in a public statement that Traitz was “the latest example of people coming out of the woodwork with unsubstantiated or fabricated stories” about Cosby.

Each of the three women alleges one count of defamation. Cosby’s responses, the complaint said, caused public contempt, ridicule and loss of reputation. All three are seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as pre- and post-judgment interest, attorney fees and costs.

IMAGE: ON THE DEFENSE: Entertainer Bill Cosby faces allegations that he drugged and ­molested women throughout his career. AP / Phelan M. Ebenhack

For more on this story go to: http://www.thelegalintelligencer.com/id=1202728288417/Cosby-Seeks-to-Prevent-Disclosure-of-2006-Settlement#ixzz3c6JE7qPg