Survivor: Borneo

Stacey Stillman's Survivor lawsuit: what the court actually ruled

Stacey Stillman filed a 14-page suit in Los Angeles Superior Court on 5 February 2001 against CBS, Survivor Entertainment Group and Mark Burnett. She alleged Burnett persuaded Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff to switch their votes from Rudy Boesch to her. CBS denied it and countersued for $5 million. No court ruled on the allegation.

Disputed The filing, the $5 million counterclaim and the June 2001 ruling are documented. The central allegation, that Mark Burnett influenced two votes, was denied by CBS and never adjudicated. The reported settlement is secondhand.

Stacey Stillman Stacey Stillman Dirk Been Dirk Been Sean Kenniff Sean Kenniff Rudy Boesch Rudy Boesch

What the record shows

  • Confirmed Stillman, a lawyer and the third person voted out of Survivor: Borneo, filed a 14-page complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court on Monday 5 February 2001 against CBS, Survivor Entertainment Group, Mark Burnett and fellow contestants Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff, pleading fraud, breach of contract and unlawful business practices.
  • Disputed Stillman alleged that Burnett persuaded Been and Kenniff to switch their votes from Rudy Boesch to her. CBS denied the allegation. No court has ruled on it.
  • Confirmed She sought restitution of lost prize money plus $75,000 in punitive damages. CBS and Survivor Entertainment Group counterclaimed for $5 million, alleging she had breached her confidentiality agreement and defamed the show.
  • Confirmed On 24 June 2001 Judge Ralph Dau issued a tentative ruling that split the two counterclaims. The breach-of-contract counterclaim could not stand, in the court's reasoning, because a contract should not be used to stop someone making a claim of impropriety. The defamation counterclaim was allowed to proceed.
  • Confirmed Dau separately ordered Dirk Been's sealed deposition unsealed. CBS News reported that the deposition indicated Burnett had spoken with Been about which players to vote for or against.
  • Unverified The case ended without any adjudication of the vote allegation. No trial verdict, no finding of fact and no ruling on whether the vote was influenced has been located, in either direction.
  • Unverified Secondary coverage consistently reports an out-of-court settlement on undisclosed terms. No primary filing, dismissal, register of actions or contemporaneous news report confirming a settlement could be retrieved, and the Los Angeles Superior Court historic name index is fee-gated.

What Stillman actually filed

Stacey Stillman was the third person voted out of Survivor: Borneo and, away from the island, a practising lawyer. On Monday 5 February 2001, about six months after the first season's finale, she filed a 14-page complaint in Los Angeles Superior Court. The defendants were CBS, Survivor Entertainment Group, Mark Burnett, and two of her fellow contestants, Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff. The causes of action pleaded were fraud, breach of contract and unlawful business practices.

The core of the complaint was that Burnett persuaded Been and Kenniff to move their votes off Rudy Boesch and onto her. She asked for restitution of the prize money she said the switch cost her, plus $75,000 in punitive damages. The Associated Press reported the filing the following day, and CBS denied the allegation.

The $5 million countersuit

CBS and Survivor Entertainment Group did not just defend the case. They counterclaimed against Stillman for $5 million, alleging she had breached her confidentiality agreement and defamed the show. That is worth stating plainly, because it shapes how this page has to be written. The network's own legal position was that the accusation itself was defamatory, and a judge later allowed that defamation claim to go forward. So this page reports who alleged what, and stops there.

The litigation pulled in people who were not parties to it. The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press documented a subpoena served on reporter Peter Lance in the same proceeding, alongside the $5 million counterclaim and the order unsealing Been's deposition.

What Judge Dau ruled on 24 June 2001

On 24 June 2001 Judge Ralph Dau of Los Angeles Superior Court issued a tentative ruling that went both ways. The breach-of-contract counterclaim could not stand, in the court's reasoning, because a contract should not be used to stop someone from making a claim of impropriety. The defamation counterclaim was allowed to proceed. CBS News reported both halves.

Notice what that ruling did not do. It did not decide whether any vote was influenced. It decided which of the network's claims against Stillman could survive. The fight over those counterclaims carried on: a June 2003 Media Law Resource Center report on SEG, Inc. v. Stillman describes an appellate outcome along the same lines, with the contract claims failing for want of evidence of a breach and a defamation claim left triable. None of that reached the vote either.

The Dirk Been deposition

Been was deposed in the case and the transcript was sealed. Dau ordered it unsealed, and CBS News reported that the deposition indicated Burnett had spoken with Been about which players to vote for or against. That is the single strongest item in the whole affair and the reason the story still circulates.

It is also worth weighing accurately. This is deposition testimony, described by a news organisation, about conversations. It was never tested at trial, never weighed against whatever Burnett and CBS would have put in response, and never turned into a finding by any judge. No source located here has Been saying that a conversation changed how he voted.

Was Survivor season one rigged?

The honest answer is that this case does not establish it, and no other proceeding has. A lawsuit is a set of allegations. Stillman alleged interference, CBS denied it and countersued, a judge ruled on which counterclaims could proceed, and the matter ended before anyone decided the underlying question. Treating the existence of the suit as proof of its contents gets the burden exactly backwards.

The reverse overstatement is also wrong. No court found Stillman's allegation false, and the unsealed deposition is a real document that reporting says pointed toward producer conversations about voting. Both of those things sit on the record together, unresolved, which is an unsatisfying place for a twenty-five-year-old argument to sit but is where it sits.

How it ended, and the records still missing

Almost every account of this story ends with the word settled. Secondary coverage does report an out-of-court settlement on undisclosed terms, and it reports it consistently. What could not be retrieved is anything primary: no signed settlement, no filed dismissal, no case number for Stillman's original action and no complete docket. The Los Angeles Superior Court historic party-name index is fee-gated. So the settlement belongs on this page as reported, not as documented.

One more thing for anyone chasing the paper trail. The Reporters Committee write-up dates the filing to February 2000, which would put it before Borneo had finished airing. The Associated Press report dated 6 February 2001 has the correct date, and that is the one to cite.

People in this story

Questions people ask

What did Stacey Stillman's Survivor lawsuit claim?
That Mark Burnett persuaded Dirk Been and Sean Kenniff to switch their votes from Rudy Boesch to her. She filed on 5 February 2001 in Los Angeles Superior Court, pleading fraud, breach of contract and unlawful business practices. CBS denied the allegation.
Did a court find that Survivor: Borneo was rigged?
No. No court ruled on whether the vote was influenced. The only rulings located concern CBS and SEG's counterclaims against Stillman, and the case ended without a trial verdict on her allegation.
What did Judge Dau rule in June 2001?
On 24 June 2001 he issued a tentative ruling rejecting the breach-of-contract counterclaim, reasoning that a contract should not stop someone making a claim of impropriety, while allowing the defamation counterclaim to proceed.
What was in Dirk Been's deposition?
Dau ordered the sealed deposition unsealed and CBS News reported it indicated Burnett had spoken with Been about which players to vote for or against. It was never tested at trial and produced no court finding.
How did Stacey Stillman's case end?
Reported as an out-of-court settlement on undisclosed terms. That comes from secondary coverage only. No signed settlement, filed dismissal or docket could be retrieved, so treat it as reported rather than documented.
Did CBS sue Stacey Stillman back?
Yes. CBS and Survivor Entertainment Group counterclaimed for $5 million, alleging she breached her confidentiality agreement and defamed the show. A judge allowed the defamation part of that counterclaim to proceed.

Sources

Checked on 2026-07-26. If something here is wrong or out of date, we want to know: get in touch.