Alec Baldwin Claims That His ‘Rust’ Contract Absolves Him Of Legal Liability For Halyna Hutchins’ Death

Alec Baldwin’s been speaking out of court lately, more specifically, at a Colorado film festival where he suggested that Rust plaintiffs are suing the most deep-pocketed defendants possible. This, unfortunately, sounded like Baldwin was shading the husband of Halyna Hutchens, who was killed by a firearm held by Baldwin, even though he insists that he didn’t fire the gun. It wasn’t the wisest move for Alec to be so public with his arguments about plaintiff interests while also named as a defendant (given that he’s a Rust producer in addition to acting in the film), but Alec’s moving in on the court, too.

New court documents posted by Deadline reveal how Baldwin’s attorneys submitted 37 pages in an effort to clear him of financial responsibility. Sections 35-36 of the document assert that Baldwin’s Rust contract granted him “a tie-break on all creative decisions” and matters of budget, but he had “no independent authority to make hiring decisions” on the film. In turn, the attorneys argue, he shouldn’t be responsible for crew members’ negligence. It’s getting uglier, but the gist is that Alec is wants to make sure that someone pays for Halyna’s death, but it shouldn’t be him:

Halyna Hutchens’ death is an unthinkable tragedy. Perhaps billions of rounds have been fired from guns on film and television sets over the past 75 years, without incident. Only a few — in the single digits — have resulted in fatal injury. That’s because crew members generally do their job to ensure that live rounds don’t end up in guns being fired by actors on movie sets. This is a rare instance when the system broke down, and someone should be held culpable for the tragic consequences. That person is not Alec Baldwin.

Then there’s some contentious language (a lot, actually), in which Alec’s accusing Matt Hutchins of digging too hard for money and rejecting a settlement offer. At first, the court documents claim, Hutchins described the “proposed settlement” as “interesting,” but later on, “Hutchins sounded less open-minded.”

This change of heart, Baldwin claims, caused Alec to lose hope for “plans to complete Rust and to channel its proceeds into a fund for Hutchins’s and his son’s benefit,” which Baldwin asserts “have unfortunately broken down as a result of the lawsuit and these public statements.” It sounds like Alec wasn’t thrilled that Matt Hutchins accused him of trying to offload blame to other parties during an ABC News interview, which was a very public declaration in and of itself. Following that interview, Matt Hutchins admitted that he was “just so angry to see him talk about her death so publicly in such a detailed way and then to not accept any responsibility after having just described killing her.”