Judge dismisses NASCAR as defendant

NASCAR has been dismissed as a defendant in a lawsuit over the firing of a teacher following the filming of an explicit video shot two years ago at a Charlotte high school. Providence Day School teacher Kathryn Taylor, a 37-year employee and director of summer programs who was 64 years old at the time of her firing, had filed suit against her school, NASCAR and the NASCAR Media Group over her dismissal.

NASCAR and NASCAR Media Group were dismissed as defendants following a hearing earlier this month in North Carolina Superior Court in Charlotte, according to court documents.

According to the lawsuit, in June 2009, NASCAR Media Group asked Taylor if it could use the school’s boys locker room as a backdrop for a video it had been contracted to shoot. She claims in court documents that she was told that rapper Bettie Grind, whose real name is Greg Brown, would not be part of the video shoot and that the NASCAR Media Group gave her a script. She OK’d the use of the facility for free in return for a promise that the school at some point could use a NASCAR facility and have access to NASCAR personnel.

When the video came out in November 2009, it included the musician in the scenes shot on campus and contained adult content and explicit material. Taylor claims in her lawsuit that this gave the school’s headmaster a reason to fire her from the school where she had planned to teach until she turned 70.

NASCAR asked the judge to dismiss the claims because she was acting as an agent of the school and not in an individual capacity. The judge agreed and dismissed NASCAR and NASCAR Media Group as defendants. Taylor’s case against the school is still pending.