Matt Gutman, the CBS News chief correspondent who has been filling in as anchor of the "CBS Evening News," is no longer a named defendant in a sexual harassment and wrongful-termination lawsuit filed by a former ABC News colleague — but he isn't fully out of the story.

Attorneys for Samira Said, a onetime ABC News field producer, filed paperwork on Friday, September 4, asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to dismiss Gutman and former ABC News Los Angeles bureau chief David Herndon "without prejudice" from her suit, according to TMZ and TheWrap. "Without prejudice" means Said retains the right to re-add either man as a defendant later.

What Said Originally Alleged

Said filed the original complaint on August 14, 2026, naming Gutman, Herndon, ABC News and parent company The Walt Disney Co., per Daily Voice. She accused Gutman, now 48, of creating a hostile work environment through inappropriate remarks during two separate incidents — including numerically rating a female correspondent's appearance and, during a work-site disagreement, making a sexualized insinuation about why Said didn't want to relocate for an assignment. Separately, Said alleged ABC terminated her in 2025 after she experienced mental health struggles, without providing accommodations required under California's Fair Employment and Housing Act. Her suit also cites discrimination, retaliation and intentional infliction of emotional distress.

Gutman spent nearly two decades at ABC News before jumping to CBS News earlier this year. TheWrap reports the individual defendants' dismissal came as part of a deal in which ABC agreed to facilitate depositions and trial appearances going forward — a common arrangement when a plaintiff narrows a case to the corporate defendants with the deeper pockets and the employment records.

Said's attorneys did not publicly explain their reasoning for dropping Gutman from the case, and representatives for both ABC News and CBS News declined to comment, according to multiple outlets covering the filing.

Gutman himself has declined to comment through a CBS News spokesperson, per TMZ's report. Disney had not substantively responded to the complaint's specifics as of the most recent filings.

What doesn't change: ABC News and Disney remain defendants, and Said is still pursuing compensatory and punitive damages plus attorney's fees over her termination and the workplace conduct she describes. The case continues in Los Angeles Superior Court, with no trial date yet reported.

The dismissal comes at an awkward moment for Gutman, who has been drawing new visibility as a rotating face of "CBS Evening News" following his network jump — a promotion now shadowed, at least for a news cycle, by his brief entanglement in a colleague's legal fight against his former employer.