Former ABC News producer Samira Said asked a Los Angeles Superior Court on Sept. 4 to dismiss CBS News Chief Correspondent Matt Gutman from her wrongful-termination lawsuit, a filing that would remove one of the case’s named defendants if the court approves it. ABC and The Walt Disney Co. remain defendants in the complaint.
The move comes in a case that has drawn attention because Said says Gutman made a sexualized insinuation about her while she was working at ABC News' LA bureau. She filed the lawsuit against ABC on Aug. 14, saying she was fired in March 2025 after a series of disputes over her treatment at the network. The request to drop Gutman narrows the case, but it does not end the fight over what happened at ABC.
Said worked as a field producer from May 2021 to March 2025 and says the problems began long before her firing. She alleges she was sent to Uvalde, Texas, to help cover the aftermath of the shooting at Robb Elementary, then later was placed on medical leave from August 2022 through January 2023 after a psychiatrist granted that leave. In her complaint, she says she was cleared to work again subject to reasonable accommodations, but later was limited to weekend desk shifts around March 2023.
Her filing also says the network required her to keep working while she was on protected leave, and that she was later forced into a role with less responsibility after returning. Said said she was placed on an all-male team that included Gutman and two other crew members, and she accused Gutman of starting a conversation on assignment in which he rated a female correspondent’s appearance. She said the men joined in and continued discussing the woman’s body and looks in front of her, before Gutman made what she described as a sexualized insinuation that she must have had an after-hours date.
The Sept. 4 paperwork asking for Gutman’s dismissal did not explain why his name should come out of the case. It also does not make clear whether the court has approved the request, leaving ABC and The Walt Disney Co. as the remaining defendants while Said pursues the broader claims at the center of the lawsuit. For now, the filing changes the lineup, but not the larger legal battle over how ABC treated one of its former producers.
