I stopped covering the back-and-forth minutiae of Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie’s many lawsuits and legal shenanigans. Let’s be fair to Angelina – she’s been trying to extract herself from Pitt legally and financially for years, and he is the one who is trying to “punish” her and abuse her through the court system, because he’s an abusive, childish piece of sh-t who still can’t believe that she had the audacity to leave him. This is all about Angelina’s sale of Nouvel, her “half” of Chateau Miraval. She sold Nouvel to Yuri Shefler and a Stoli subsidiary and she did so through completely above-board legal means. Pitt is suing her because he claims that they had a secret, unwritten agreement that she would never sell Nouvel to anyone but him. Jolie countered with: I tried to sell Nouvel to Pitt but he tried to attach a non-disclosure agreement to the sale to silence me about his physical and emotional abuse. So, on we go. As it turns out, there’s been a lot of movement in the American side of these court cases this month and Entertainment Tonight had some exclusive updates:

What’s actually happening in court, according to Jolie’s lawyer: After Pitt scored a victory on March 13 in his lawsuit against Jolie, a source knowledgeable about the case tells ET that a court in Los Angeles, California, actually ruled against Pitt on Jolie’s demurrer to his original complaint and dismissed five of the seven claims Pitt asserted against her. Jolie’s attorney, Paul Murphy, gave a statement to ET regarding the judge’s ruling on Jolie’s demurrer: “The judge dismissed most of Mr. Pitt’s claims because they don’t have a legal basis. Mr. Pitt’s lawsuit has never been about a business dispute; instead, it is about his attempts to cover up serious abuse, and we are gratified the judge has thrown out so much of Mr. Pitt’s complaint. Angelina truly harbors no ill-will toward Mr. Pitt, and hopes he will now release her from his frivolous lawsuit, stop his relentless attacks, and join her in helping their family heal in private.”

Pitt’s legal argument is a mess: In documents obtained by ET, one of the dismissed claims was brought under Luxembourg law, which the Court dismissed with prejudice, declining to recognize Luxembourg law in this case. According to the source, this ruling is important because Pitt was trying to find a way to seek to recover his attorneys’ fees incurred in this case and this was the only claim that gave him the potential to recover his fees. The court sustained this demurrer without leave to amend, which means Pitt can’t recover his attorneys’ fees either.

What else was dismissed: The source says that another claim was for a constructive trust — a request that the court give Pitt the shares in Miraval that Nouvel currently holds. The court dismissed this claim with prejudice as well. The court also dismissed three additional tort claims as well, meaning Jolie will not be exposed to punitive damages. The source explains that one of Pitt’s claims was based on the theory that Jolie and Nouvel were alter egos of each other and argued that the actress was liable for Nouvel’s alleged misconduct. The Court rejected this argument and the claims that Jolie interfered with Pitt’s business relationships with Miraval and the Perrin family. The court has given Pitt time to amend and try to make the three claims legally tenable, which the source tells ET they don’t think the actor will be able to do.

The remaining claims: The remaining two claims that haven’t been dismissed are Pitt’s claim that he had a secret, unwritten, unspoken implied contract with Jolie whereby she could not sell her interest in Miraval without his consent and a claim for quantum meruit based on the notion that Pitt did more work for Miraval. Although the source tells ET that “there is no agreement” between Jolie and Pitt, the court found that the existence of this implied contract and the right to quantum meruit are factual matters that Jolie could not resolve. Still, the source says that they are “confident” the court will throw out the final two claims on summary judgment.

[From ET]

It sounds like Pitt and his lawyers went into court half-cocked and expected to bully and abuse Angelina like always and the court was like “WTF are you doing??” Meanwhile, there are a dozen other legal situations Pitt has to deal with from the American courts to the French courts to the Luxembourg courts. There’s a dodgy tax situation in France, and Yuri Shefler (who now owns Nouvel) is basically auditing the crap out of the business and finding widespread impropriety. Pitt has tried to push Nouvel/Shefler out of the business and “seize de facto control” of Miraval. Shefler has also credibly accused Pitt of gross mismanagement, from handing over a large part of the business to the Perrin family to wasting millions of dollars on vanity projects.

ET also reports that a Luxembourg court recently ruled that Shefler/Nouvel can proceed with their $250 million claim against Pitt for all of this mismanagement, despite Pitt’s efforts to have Shefler’s lawsuits dismissed. Hilariously, the Luxembourg courts recently ruled (according to ET) that “Pitt cannot sue Shefler or Shefler’s company, SPI Group Holding Limited after he tried to add numerous parties to his second amended complaint.” I have believed for some time now that the endgame for this will be Pitt selling his half of Miraval because he’s so far in debt, and Shefler isn’t f–king around.

Photos courtesy of Backgrid.