Judge again denies SAG injunction request

LOS ANGELES, Feb. 5 (UPI) -- Los Angeles Superior Court Judge James Chalfant Thursday denied in full the Screen Actors Guild's request for a temporary restraining order.

SAG had been seeking to invalidate its national board majority's written assent of Jan. 26, which removed national executive director and chief negotiator Doug Allen from his posts.

The restraining order also would have prevented Allen's replacements from negotiating with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers on SAG's behalf.

The last SAG-AMPTP contract expired June 30, 2008. Negotiations have been stalled for months, but were set to start up again this week, only to be postponed when SAG decided to file the request for an injunction. The guild submitted its request earlier this week, but a judge rejected it because there were errors and told the group to re-file it, which they did Thursday.

The announcement that SAG and AMPTP would return to the bargaining table came after Allen's ouster. Allen had been widely criticized for his negotiating tactics with AMPTP in recent months.

SAG said Thursday Chalfant denied the order on the grounds that the plaintiffs "had no probability of success on the merits of their claims."

"I'm pleased that we can put this matter behind us and dedicate our complete focus to the needs of Screen Actors Guild members. There's a lot of work ahead of us," said Screen Actors Guild Interim National Executive Director David White in a statement posted on the guild's Web site.