CBS personality Matt Gutman is at the center of a new sexual harassment lawsuit, arriving as his recent stint at the anchor desk has helped lift ratings for the embattled network.
Gutman, 48, was sued Friday by former ABC News field producer Samira Said, who alleges he made inappropriate sexual comments during two work assignments dating back several years.
The complaint was filed in Los Angeles Superior Court and names Gutman, ABC News and its parent company, The Walt Disney Co., as defendants.
According to the lawsuit, one alleged episode unfolded while Said and Gutman were waiting in a public line during an assignment, when Gutman allegedly began talking about and scoring the looks of a female correspondent.
The filing claims Gutman “initiated a discussion rating a female correspondent’s appearance and reducing her professional standing to a numerical score based on her physical attributes.”
Other male crew members allegedly took part in the exchange and pressed Said to offer her own assessment, the lawsuit states.
Said declined to participate and told the group the conversation was inappropriate, according to the complaint.
The lawsuit also describes a second alleged incident involving Said and Gutman while they were covering a press event tied to a movie release.
The two disagreed about whether they should leave the work site.
Gutman allegedly responded with a sexualized insinuation about Said in front of several coworkers.
“In front of multiple coworkers, Gutman responded by making a sexualized insinuation that Said must have an after-hours date in the city,” the suit said.
Said alleges the comments were demeaning and “reduced [Said’s] professional judgment to a sexualized stereotype.”
The allegations against Gutman are part of a broader wrongful termination lawsuit against ABC.
Said, who worked as an ABC News field producer for four years, claims she was wrongfully fired in 2025 after dealing with mental health issues.
She accuses ABC of violating California’s Fair Employment and Housing Act by failing to provide accommodations.
Said had been assigned to cover the 2022 shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, where she was required to interview child survivors who had witnessed their classmates being killed.
After the assignment, Said told her supervisor she needed a short leave to attend to her health, but was denied, according to the suit.
A psychiatrist eventually approved medical leave.
The lawsuit alleges that shortly after the leave began, David Herndon, then head of ABC’s Los Angeles bureau, continued sending Said assignment requests.
Said was assigned to cover the Los Angeles wildfires in January 2025.
About three weeks into the assignment, she was sent home after a supervisor observed her physical condition deteriorating, according to the suit.
Later that year, Said injured her foot while covering a weather-related story in the area.
She reported the injury to supervisors but was denied medical leave after being evaluated by a company doctor, the lawsuit claims.
Said is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, along with attorneys’ fees.
Gutman spent 17 years at ABC News, primarily reporting from Los Angeles, before joining CBS News in January.
He was the first high-profile talent hired by CBS News Editor-in-Chief Bari Weiss, who took over the division in October 2025.
CBS Evening News averaged 4.1 million viewers for the week of July 27, according to Nielsen, its best weekly audience in 17 weeks and its first time topping 4 million viewers since late March.
Gutman was filling in for vacationing anchor Tony Dokoupil.
The lawsuit comes after Gutman recently revealed that he nearly fell for a sophisticated phone scam.
In a July video, Gutman said a caller claiming to work in his bank’s “fraud protection” department gave a name and badge ID and appeared to know detailed information about his banking.
The call was convincing enough that Gutman said he nearly walked into his bank and emptied his account.
He realized something was wrong when the caller told him to keep bank employees in the dark.
