Is John Travolta really a closeted gay? That and more secrets of the star might be revealed following the decision by an appeals court judge to allow the A-lister's former pilot to make a case that he has no confidentiality agreement with his ex-employer.
On Tuesday, Daily Mail said Douglas Gotterba was given approval by a California court to proceed with his complaint against the "Grease" actor, whose lawyer has issued a cease-and-desist order against the former's plan to release a revealing account of his time working with the actor's airline company Alto.
Attorney Martin Singer threatened Gotterba legal action after discovering that the latter had spoken to the National Enquirer. Citing a report by the Hollywood Reporter, Gotterba reportedly was forced to do a tell-all after he was put on the spotlight by another former employee of the actor.
Singer wrote in the order, "'We demand that you immediately cease and desist from your wrongful course of conduct which has subjected you to enormous liability and entitles my client to seek tens of millions of dollars in compensatory and punitive damages."
Since the beginning of the 1980s, Gotterba had worked for Alto. He left the company after writing and submitting his termination notice.
The heart of the issue lies with Gotterba's final contract with the star's company, which is dated March 17, 1978. Gotterba has claimed that his last contract with Travolta did not contain a confidentiality clause, of which the star's camp disagree. Gotterba decided to prove his point by suing Alto and Travolta in order to get a judicial declaration about which contract was valid and whether the confidentiality clause was also valid, Daily Mail said.
Alto, on the other hand, had not been successful with its application for an anti-SLAPP motion in order to block Gotterba's lawsuit.
Presiding judge Arthur Gilbert said, "(The case was not based on Singer's) sabre-rattling [but] the validity of the asserted termination agreements. Although the prelitigation letters may have triggered Gotterba's complaint and may be evidence in support of the complaint, they are not the basis of the complaint."
