By This Hour World News Desk
A federal judge has dismissed the remaining claims in former wardrobe stylist Asha Daniels’s employment lawsuit against Big Grrrl Big Touring Inc, the production company associated with Lizzo. The ruling ends the claims that remained against the company after Lizzo herself was removed as an individual defendant in 2024.
The decision turns on the legal threshold for workplace-harassment and disability claims, rather than on a finding that every event alleged by Daniels did not occur. US district judge Fernando L Aenlle-Rocha concluded that the conduct described in the complaint did not satisfy the applicable standards under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act or the Americans with Disabilities Act. Daniels’s legal team disputes that conclusion and says it is weighing its options.
Lizzo said she felt relieved and grateful after the ruling. In a social-media post, she thanked her lawyers and said she would continue to contest claims made against her and her businesses. The artist has consistently denied Daniels’s allegations.
The court’s ruling focused on legal standards
Daniels filed her lawsuit in September 2023 after working briefly for Big Grrrl Big Touring in connection with Lizzo’s touring operation. She alleged bullying and workplace misconduct, including sexual and racial harassment. Her complaint also included a disability-related claim tied to an alleged injury involving a heavy clothing rack.
The judge dismissed the outstanding claims against the company. In the ruling, Aenlle-Rocha found that Daniels had not identified conduct by company employees demonstrating a general hostility toward women in the workplace or unequal treatment of men and women. That conclusion addressed the legal requirements relevant to her sex-discrimination and harassment allegations.
Aenlle-Rocha characterized the alleged incidents as inappropriate and unprofessional, but held that they fell outside the conduct protected against under Title VII as interpreted in the relevant legal framework. The distinction is consequential: workplace behavior may be found objectionable without meeting the statutory standard needed for a federal employment-discrimination claim.
That is the basis on which the remaining harassment-related claims were dismissed. The ruling does not, in the material available, set out a broader assessment of every workplace interaction alleged by Daniels. Its central conclusion is narrower: the allegations, as evaluated by the court, did not establish claims that could proceed under the cited law.
The judge also considered Daniels’s disability-discrimination allegation. Daniels had said that a wardrobe manager rolled a heavy rack over her foot and pushed her, causing an injury. Aenlle-Rocha said the court did not seek to diminish the pain she reported, but concluded that the asserted injuries did not qualify as disabilities under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
That finding resolved the ADA portion of the case. It reflects the court’s judgment about whether the alleged injury met the law’s definition, not a general statement about whether an employee can experience pain or difficulty while working.
Lizzo had already been dismissed personally
The latest order follows an earlier decision in the same case. In 2024, Aenlle-Rocha ruled that Daniels could not pursue the lawsuit against Lizzo as an individual defendant. Big Grrrl Big Touring remained in the case, leaving the company to answer the claims until this week’s dismissal.
That procedural history matters because public descriptions of the case have often referred broadly to a lawsuit involving Lizzo. The ruling now concerns the final claims against the production company; it comes after the court had already removed the performer personally from Daniels’s suit. Lizzo’s legal position and the company’s role as defendant were therefore treated separately during the litigation.
The case was brought against Lizzo and the company at a time when the singer was also facing a separate lawsuit from three former backup dancers. Lizzo denied the allegations in both matters. Her lawyers had described Daniels’s accusations as without merit when the wardrobe stylist’s case was filed.
The separate dancers’ case has followed its own course. A judge dismissed fat-shaming allegations from that lawsuit in 2025, while other claims in that case remain ongoing. The dismissal in Daniels’s lawsuit does not resolve the dancers’ litigation, which involves different plaintiffs and claims.
The two cases have nevertheless shaped the public backdrop to Lizzo’s response. After the earlier ruling in the dancers’ case, she said she did not intend to settle and would keep fighting the claims. Her reaction to the dismissal of Daniels’s remaining claims used similar terms, framing the outcome as a vindication of her position and crediting her legal team.
Daniels’s lawyer says a jury should have assessed the evidence
Ron Zambrano, Daniels’s lawyer, said the legal team was disappointed by the outcome. While saying that the team respected the court and judicial process, he argued that the decision improperly weighed evidence that he believes should have been considered by a jury.
His statement identifies the point of disagreement between Daniels’s side and the court. The judge found that the claims did not meet the governing standards. Daniels’s lawyers contend that the full workplace environment, the context surrounding the alleged incidents and disputed facts should have been assessed by jurors instead.
Zambrano specifically challenged the court’s ADA conclusion. He disagreed that Daniels’s reported ankle injury and limp while she was trying to work fell short of the legal definition of disability. The judge’s order had found that the injury alleged in the case did not meet the requirements of the statute.
Those competing positions do not create uncertainty about the immediate ruling: the claims have been dismissed. They do show why the result may not be the final word from Daniels’s side. Her lawyer said the team was considering appropriate next steps, but did not announce a specific course of action in the material available.
It is therefore unclear whether Daniels will seek to challenge the dismissal and, if so, on what grounds. No timetable for any further filing was given. Unless a court action changes the result, the present order disposes of the remaining claims against Big Grrrl Big Touring in this lawsuit.
A dismissal is not a jury verdict on the allegations
The ruling is a significant legal win for Lizzo and Big Grrrl Big Touring because it prevents Daniels’s remaining federal claims from moving forward in their present form. It also means the case will not proceed to a jury on those claims unless the dismissal is successfully challenged or altered through a further legal process.
But the court’s decision should not be read more broadly than its stated basis. Daniels alleged a range of conduct that she described as degrading and unsafe, including sexual and racial harassment, denial of medical care and forced physical labor. Lizzo denied the allegations. The judge assessed whether the pleaded conduct cleared statutory thresholds, finding it did not.
In that sense, the order establishes the court’s legal determination on the claims before it. It does not provide a jury’s factual verdict weighing competing accounts of the working environment. That difference is central to Daniels’s lawyer’s criticism of the ruling, though the court has reached the opposite conclusion about whether the allegations warranted further proceedings.
Lizzo’s public response emphasized relief and gratitude. She said truth was especially important to her, thanked her attorneys and indicated that she would continue to fight claims involving herself and her businesses. Her statement did not announce a new legal action or alter the status of the separate dancers’ case.
For Daniels, the immediate practical outcome is that the federal case against the production company has been dismissed. For Lizzo, the order removes one lawsuit from the claims then pending against her business interests. The unresolved issue is whether Daniels’s team will attempt to revive any part of the case through a further court filing.
The remaining legal picture is narrower, not fully closed
The dismissal narrows the litigation surrounding Lizzo, but it does not settle every public allegation made in connection with her touring operation. Daniels’s action and the lawsuit filed by the former dancers are separate matters. The outcome in one cannot be treated as a ruling on the claims in the other.
The material available also does not establish what Daniels’s legal team will decide next. Its stated response was that it was considering options, alongside its view that jurors should have evaluated the evidence. No appeal or other formal challenge is described in the information provided.
For now, the clearest conclusion is procedural and legal: Aenlle-Rocha has dismissed Daniels’s remaining claims against Big Grrrl Big Touring, after previously dismissing Lizzo individually. The parties sharply disagree about whether that result properly accounts for Daniels’s allegations. The court’s order is controlling unless and until it is changed through further proceedings.
