Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Well, some of you will find this funny.

People magazine posted about Blake’s launch of her body mist spray as part of her Blake Brown line, because of course they did as they work for her now.

But anyway, if you click on the comments, one of the first ones is something like, “instructions for using body mist:Spray on, wait for someone to compliment you on the smell, sue them for sexual harassment.”

LOL

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wut? There are a lot more weird spammy comments in this thread coming from the Baldoni side that are just basically insult hit posts against Lively and how she better settle soon. So weird.

What is SEO? Is that Search Engine something? I don't think DCUM is a significant factor in most search engine result hits etc. But this fits with Team Baldoni's absolute bonkers conspiracy theories posted in this thread about Lively supporters.

Dp. Not spammy at all. That’s me. Lawyer with some experience in this area who can see how poorly this is going. I would advise my client to work towards settlement but her litigators are obviously too busy billing to give her good advice

And as always, whenever someone makes a good point, they are ‘crazy’ or ‘bonkers’ in your estimation.

Look, we can all see where the spam is coming from…

Nobody is reading your shit, nut job.

Right. Yet, here you are responding…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well, some of you will find this funny.

People magazine posted about Blake’s launch of her body mist spray as part of her Blake Brown line, because of course they did as they work for her now.

But anyway, if you click on the comments, one of the first ones is something like, “instructions for using body mist:Spray on, wait for someone to compliment you on the smell, sue them for sexual harassment.”

LOL

"It smells SO good!"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not actually golden agrees the motion is odd given the case circumstances. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86WY8Cc/

She gave Blake’s request for sanctions a 98% chance of failing. Failing!!

Yeah, NAG didn’t think Liman would strike Freedman’s filings either and thought it was weird he did (and she oddly blamed Hudson for raising it in the first place when once again she was simply doing the perfectly normal thing of notifying a judge of related proceedings going on in a different jurisdiction!). So while I actually agree that I don’t think Liman will grant sanctions on this motion, NAG’s 98% odds are not exactly something anyone should be placing bets on.

I am increasingly skeptical of NAG. I also think it's a little odd that she is not very forthcoming with her legal credentials. I increasingly think she has quite limited experience with this kind of litigation and with federal court specifically. She's not totally off base most of the time, but sometimes her analysis is off in weird ways that make me think she's reading up on these issues before making her videos and doesn't full understand how it normally works, but claiming she does. She uses a lot of qualifiers and adopts this very specific tone to sort of cover herself, but I think she's been very wrong a few times lately.

Early on her analysis was more balanced and she made a sort of decided shift towards being more critical of Lively's legal team and complimentary of Freedman at some point. Not overwhelmingly so -- Freedman is a clever lawyer and Lively's team has made some unforced errors so it didn't jump out at me at the time. But increasingly I think that like a lot of creators, she recognizes there's more clicks and money in catering to the pro-JB side and this has led her to put out some weak analysis in order to give people what they want to hear (like saying this motion has a 98% chance of losing, which is a pretty crazy thing to say given that Liman has indicated he is losing patience with Wayfarer and Freedman -- I think the more likely thing is that he splits the baby, granting the motion but awarding very minimal fees so that he gets rid of this group pleading issue now but it's not like he's aggressively punishing Wayfarer for it).

NAG seems to increasingly be siding with Baldoni's lawyers on everything at a time in the litigation where I think Lively's team is executing some good procedural moves, even if her PR has not kept up at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wut? There are a lot more weird spammy comments in this thread coming from the Baldoni side that are just basically insult hit posts against Lively and how she better settle soon. So weird.

What is SEO? Is that Search Engine something? I don't think DCUM is a significant factor in most search engine result hits etc. But this fits with Team Baldoni's absolute bonkers conspiracy theories posted in this thread about Lively supporters.

Oh like the one you posted pretending to be a paranoid Baldoni supporter who was concerned about tracking? Funny.

You have made this assertion a few times but it sure isn’t true. Sad.

That claim was made once pages ago. You must be here all day…

And the original post was made once (by you or your PR twin) many pages ago, but you continue to bring it up as evidence that those who don’t support blake are ‘bonkers’ or ‘crazy’.

Look, we aren’t dumb.

Oh, sure, now accuse Lively fans of writing your stupidest posts, as a ruse. Lame. I feel sorry for the Baldoni supporter who wrote that, because you all are totally deserting her, in her foreign hideout, and wherever she is she probably needs your support.

(It really wasn't me, since she explicitly said she was posting from another country and I'm right here in the DMV, but whatevs.)

I guess you have nothing substantive to post today despite this motion for sanctions and MTC. Looks like the MTC involves the 2-years-too-late investigation by a private investigator of Lively's sexual harassment claims, which Baldoni is claiming is privileged, at least until they decide to use the results of the investigation themselves at trial, lol. The fact that Wayfarer didn't bother to begin to conduct an investigation into this until TWO YEARS after the events happened certainly says something about its HR department, but I guess that's not a shocker since they've been sued for discrimination and unlawful termination before.

Reading comprehension? It wasn’t my post. It was yours, obsessively raising ‘crazy’ pro Baldoni posters who you also claim were paranoid about being tracked (although it’s obvious it was you/your twin who posted it) trying to make Baldoni people look ‘crazy’. You’ve brought it up repeatedly, including today, even though the original post was pages and pages ago. And today alone you’ve called Baldoni people ‘crazy’ or ‘bonkers’ or ‘nuts’. You’ll do anything to undermine the legitimacy of anyone who doesn’t support Blake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As scintillating as "you're a bot!" "no, you're a bot!" is...

Not sure if this is really the move for Lively. Liman seemed pissed at Freedman last week, where you could see how this was the best time to possibly get sanctions if you're ever going to try... OTOH, this is also producing more of the pointless bickering that Liman was pissed about, so I am not sure that they are doing themselves a great favor. It's basically another MTD which is what Wayfarer's attorneys argued in their letter response (it's the last exhibit).

This is what I think, the judge was annoyed with Freedman last week, and now Gottlieb et al are wasting their momentary advantage by going out of their way to annoy the judge with an unnecessary motion. Rule 11 sanctions are an extraordinary remedy, not something regularly assessed on the losing party of amotion to dismiss. Furthermore, the motion to dismiss hasn’t even been decided, and frankly, this can be interpreted as a bit of a swipe at the judge for not yet issuing a decision. I think it’s a tactical mistake by the Lively attorneys.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not actually golden agrees the motion is odd given the case circumstances. https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP86WY8Cc/

She gave Blake’s request for sanctions a 98% chance of failing. Failing!!

Yeah, NAG didn’t think Liman would strike Freedman’s filings either and thought it was weird he did (and she oddly blamed Hudson for raising it in the first place when once again she was simply doing the perfectly normal thing of notifying a judge of related proceedings going on in a different jurisdiction!). So while I actually agree that I don’t think Liman will grant sanctions on this motion, NAG’s 98% odds are not exactly something anyone should be placing bets on.

I am increasingly skeptical of NAG. I also think it's a little odd that she is not very forthcoming with her legal credentials. I increasingly think she has quite limited experience with this kind of litigation and with federal court specifically. She's not totally off base most of the time, but sometimes her analysis is off in weird ways that make me think she's reading up on these issues before making her videos and doesn't full understand how it normally works, but claiming she does. She uses a lot of qualifiers and adopts this very specific tone to sort of cover herself, but I think she's been very wrong a few times lately.

Early on her analysis was more balanced and she made a sort of decided shift towards being more critical of Lively's legal team and complimentary of Freedman at some point. Not overwhelmingly so -- Freedman is a clever lawyer and Lively's team has made some unforced errors so it didn't jump out at me at the time. But increasingly I think that like a lot of creators, she recognizes there's more clicks and money in catering to the pro-JB side and this has led her to put out some weak analysis in order to give people what they want to hear (like saying this motion has a 98% chance of losing, which is a pretty crazy thing to say given that Liman has indicated he is losing patience with Wayfarer and Freedman -- I think the more likely thing is that he splits the baby, granting the motion but awarding very minimal fees so that he gets rid of this group pleading issue now but it's not like he's aggressively punishing Wayfarer for it).

NAG seems to increasingly be siding with Baldoni's lawyers on everything at a time in the litigation where I think Lively's team is executing some good procedural moves, even if her PR has not kept up at all.

Could NOT disagree with this more. Been practicing for two decades and have never seen a successful motion for Rule 11 sanctions. It’s a very weird move that I think is client driven and will likely backfire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some more info on the motion for sanctions (I had time to skim it):

- You have to give 21 days notice for a Rule 11 sanctions motion, and they did. All the plaintiffs/attorneys were notified via letter on April 23rd of the potential Rule 11 violation. So Freedman et al have known about this for weeks.

- According to the motion, they didn't reply to these letters, called safe harbor letters. They also didn't take the opportunity to amend their complaint in response to the safe harbor letters. So they likely knew this motion was dropping today (exactly 21 days later).

- Hudson uses the motion to get a bunch of Freedman's statements to the press on the record, which is smart. Especially that Madison Square Garden comment, which the court probably won't like since it specifically references doing a deposition for a paying crowd (this is what the judge I clerked for would have called "unseemly").

- Hudson also repeatedly references Freedman's letter last week that was stricken and the fact that the judge's order noted that future violations would incur sanctions. That Freedman letter sure is looking like a gift to Lively's lawyers right now, unless Freedman is playing some 3-dimensional chess I don't understand. It primed Liman to be more amenable to this motion.

It's a solid motion with strong legal support. I don't know how Liman will view it. Prior to last week, I would say that he'd probably deem it premature, that he'd want to rule on the MTDs first. Now I'm not so sure -- the order to strike last week was very aggressively written, indicating real disgust with Freedman's tactics there. That, combined with the MSG statement and totally ignoring the deadline to request amendment even after Liman denied the request for extension is making me think this has a good shot.

Then the question will be what he awards. Just an FYI for the uninitiated, but rewards of attorneys fees are often extremely contested and can drag on for long after a court case concludes, because the lawyers will argue about whether the fees are appropriate. I work in an area where we wind up having to look at these conflicts extensively and they can be quite involved.

Dp. To clarify for those who don’t know, the legal fees here would almost certainly be limited to those stemming *directly* from the letter that was stricken.

So a tiny drop in the bucket of the fees incurred in this ridiculous litigation.
It’s almost like this PP is trying to make this seem like a huge deal for Baldoni. When it’s not.

PP here and no, the fees wouldn't be related to the stricken letter at all, as the sanctions request is not for the letter.

They are asking for sanctions related to group pleading issue which, they say, is resulting in these plaintiffs having frivolous claims against Lively. They are explicitly asking for fees related to the motion for sanctions, which I agree would not be much.

However, I suspect they will also argue that by failing to either amend their complaint in a timely way, or respond to the safe harbor letters sent in April, these plaintiffs have forced Lively to incur additional expenses. These may be related specifically to discovery, and may be why they also filed some discovery-related motions as well. They are also arguing that awarding fees for a Rule 11 is not meant to simply compensate the filer, but to serve as a deterrent for filing frivolous claims. So they will argue that in order to properly deter this kind of thing (I think they will argue that the group pleading was essentially intentional in order to harass and prolong litigation), the fees awarded can't just be nominal. They are also going out of their way to cite Freedman's statements to press that may be particularly offensive to the court, because they want to make it appear that Wayfarer/Freedman are taking great liberties with court time and goodwill in order to encourage a more painful punishment in order to rein them back in.

I'm not saying she'll get any of this. Just recounting what is argued in the motion and speculating a bit based on the arguments and case law they are bringing in here. It is their intention to make this painful for Wayfarer here, not to just score a little procedural victory.

I stand corrected

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As scintillating as "you're a bot!" "no, you're a bot!" is...

Not sure if this is really the move for Lively. Liman seemed pissed at Freedman last week, where you could see how this was the best time to possibly get sanctions if you're ever going to try... OTOH, this is also producing more of the pointless bickering that Liman was pissed about, so I am not sure that they are doing themselves a great favor. It's basically another MTD which is what Wayfarer's attorneys argued in their letter response (it's the last exhibit).

This is what I think, the judge was annoyed with Freedman last week, and now Gottlieb et al are wasting their momentary advantage by going out of their way to annoy the judge with an unnecessary motion. Rule 11 sanctions are an extraordinary remedy, not something regularly assessed on the losing party of amotion to dismiss. Furthermore, the motion to dismiss hasn’t even been decided, and frankly, this can be interpreted as a bit of a swipe at the judge for not yet issuing a decision. I think it’s a tactical mistake by the Lively attorneys.

PP, and I was thinking that too that they're nudging the judge for a decision which will not be taken well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some more info on the motion for sanctions (I had time to skim it):

- You have to give 21 days notice for a Rule 11 sanctions motion, and they did. All the plaintiffs/attorneys were notified via letter on April 23rd of the potential Rule 11 violation. So Freedman et al have known about this for weeks.

- According to the motion, they didn't reply to these letters, called safe harbor letters. They also didn't take the opportunity to amend their complaint in response to the safe harbor letters. So they likely knew this motion was dropping today (exactly 21 days later).

- Hudson uses the motion to get a bunch of Freedman's statements to the press on the record, which is smart. Especially that Madison Square Garden comment, which the court probably won't like since it specifically references doing a deposition for a paying crowd (this is what the judge I clerked for would have called "unseemly").

- Hudson also repeatedly references Freedman's letter last week that was stricken and the fact that the judge's order noted that future violations would incur sanctions. That Freedman letter sure is looking like a gift to Lively's lawyers right now, unless Freedman is playing some 3-dimensional chess I don't understand. It primed Liman to be more amenable to this motion.

It's a solid motion with strong legal support. I don't know how Liman will view it. Prior to last week, I would say that he'd probably deem it premature, that he'd want to rule on the MTDs first. Now I'm not so sure -- the order to strike last week was very aggressively written, indicating real disgust with Freedman's tactics there. That, combined with the MSG statement and totally ignoring the deadline to request amendment even after Liman denied the request for extension is making me think this has a good shot.

Then the question will be what he awards. Just an FYI for the uninitiated, but rewards of attorneys fees are often extremely contested and can drag on for long after a court case concludes, because the lawyers will argue about whether the fees are appropriate. I work in an area where we wind up having to look at these conflicts extensively and they can be quite involved.

Dp. To clarify for those who don’t know, the legal fees here would almost certainly be limited to those stemming *directly* from the letter that was stricken.

So a tiny drop in the bucket of the fees incurred in this ridiculous litigation.
It’s almost like this PP is trying to make this seem like a huge deal for Baldoni. When it’s not.

PP here and no, the fees wouldn't be related to the stricken letter at all, as the sanctions request is not for the letter.

They are asking for sanctions related to group pleading issue which, they say, is resulting in these plaintiffs having frivolous claims against Lively. They are explicitly asking for fees related to the motion for sanctions, which I agree would not be much.

However, I suspect they will also argue that by failing to either amend their complaint in a timely way, or respond to the safe harbor letters sent in April, these plaintiffs have forced Lively to incur additional expenses. These may be related specifically to discovery, and may be why they also filed some discovery-related motions as well. They are also arguing that awarding fees for a Rule 11 is not meant to simply compensate the filer, but to serve as a deterrent for filing frivolous claims. So they will argue that in order to properly deter this kind of thing (I think they will argue that the group pleading was essentially intentional in order to harass and prolong litigation), the fees awarded can't just be nominal. They are also going out of their way to cite Freedman's statements to press that may be particularly offensive to the court, because they want to make it appear that Wayfarer/Freedman are taking great liberties with court time and goodwill in order to encourage a more painful punishment in order to rein them back in.

I'm not saying she'll get any of this. Just recounting what is argued in the motion and speculating a bit based on the arguments and case law they are bringing in here. It is their intention to make this painful for Wayfarer here, not to just score a little procedural victory.

They also filed a number of stays for discovery, based in part on group pleading, that were denied.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Wut? There are a lot more weird spammy comments in this thread coming from the Baldoni side that are just basically insult hit posts against Lively and how she better settle soon. So weird.

What is SEO? Is that Search Engine something? I don't think DCUM is a significant factor in most search engine result hits etc. But this fits with Team Baldoni's absolute bonkers conspiracy theories posted in this thread about Lively supporters.

Oh like the one you posted pretending to be a paranoid Baldoni supporter who was concerned about tracking? Funny.

You have made this assertion a few times but it sure isn’t true. Sad.

That claim was made once pages ago. You must be here all day…

And the original post was made once (by you or your PR twin) many pages ago, but you continue to bring it up as evidence that those who don’t support blake are ‘bonkers’ or ‘crazy’.

Look, we aren’t dumb.

Oh, sure, now accuse Lively fans of writing your stupidest posts, as a ruse. Lame. I feel sorry for the Baldoni supporter who wrote that, because you all are totally deserting her, in her foreign hideout, and wherever she is she probably needs your support.

(It really wasn't me, since she explicitly said she was posting from another country and I'm right here in the DMV, but whatevs.)

I guess you have nothing substantive to post today despite this motion for sanctions and MTC. Looks like the MTC involves the 2-years-too-late investigation by a private investigator of Lively's sexual harassment claims, which Baldoni is claiming is privileged, at least until they decide to use the results of the investigation themselves at trial, lol. The fact that Wayfarer didn't bother to begin to conduct an investigation into this until TWO YEARS after the events happened certainly says something about its HR department, but I guess that's not a shocker since they've been sued for discrimination and unlawful termination before.

There’s a lot of spin happening with the lively attorneys today which means this is all for PR to cover their own bad behavior. First they’re trying to make it seem like the sanctions motion is due to the witness tampering claim, though it’s not, and there’s already press running this narrative (surely with their encouragement).

The second spin is on the motion to compel, which the independent firm doing the investigation has rightly called out as an attempt to obstruct and tamper with witnesses (a pattern on their part). The investigation isn’t actually into Lively’s claims but rather into the investigation is trying to determine if there was ever a need to investigate and whether or not WF is negligent in not doing so. So to call it a too late investigation of Lively’s claims is more spin.

They say the side making the most noise is usually losing and Lively’s team has been making a lot of noise.

lol. The side making the most noise will *always* be Freedman. Look at how swiftly (ha) he turned a simple notification of related proceedings letter into an accusation of extortion from counsel, so we’ll just wait on his response to award points on this one.

It’s also interesting that Lively lodged 11 Safe Harbor letters and this motion for sanctions only deals with five of them. Though according to the Garafalo letter PP pointed out, they all do deal with the inadequate complaint pleading issue.

FYI, people that Baldoni supporters hate on Reddit are suggesting that people at Freedman’s firm on this case are looking to jump ship from Freedman’s firm.

[Anonymous]

I think part of the strategy here is to make a showy motion for sanctions against Freedman in part to beg the question: if the VanZan lawsuit was such a miscarriage of justice, why haven't they filed for sanctions against Lively and Manatt? By filing this motion, they can now respond to accusations of wrongdoing on VanZan with "so file for sanctions."

There are many, many irregular things about this litigation, on both sides. Which is why I am skeptical when people say things like "oh well I've never seen a successful Rule 11 filing." Same, but I've never seen as comprehensive and problematic a group pleading issue as Freedman has in this complaint. It's sticky and I'm surprised it hasn't been addressed. I'd never seen a letter to the court like the one Freedman filed last week, and certainly nothing like that affidavit. I have seen bench slaps as strong as Liman's last week, but not for this stage of litigation and not regarding something so.... bizarre.

I truly don't know what Liman will do with this motion and I no longer have a good sense of how the MTDs will shake out. I think we are reaching a critical point with the case where they are going to have to do a big hearing on everything pending and have it out, and then Liman will decided everything at once. And when I say "big hearing," I mean potentially a multi-day in person hearing this summer. Nothing like the little status conference back in February. A lot of issues are coming to a head at once and they are going to have to be decided together. And I think it's very hard to guess what the outcome of such a hearing could be because of the interconnected nature of all these issues -- the MTDs, this motion, and the ongoing discovery disputes. Which are likely about to get spicier because we are getting closer to deposition time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Some more info on the motion for sanctions (I had time to skim it):

- You have to give 21 days notice for a Rule 11 sanctions motion, and they did. All the plaintiffs/attorneys were notified via letter on April 23rd of the potential Rule 11 violation. So Freedman et al have known about this for weeks.

- According to the motion, they didn't reply to these letters, called safe harbor letters. They also didn't take the opportunity to amend their complaint in response to the safe harbor letters. So they likely knew this motion was dropping today (exactly 21 days later).

- Hudson uses the motion to get a bunch of Freedman's statements to the press on the record, which is smart. Especially that Madison Square Garden comment, which the court probably won't like since it specifically references doing a deposition for a paying crowd (this is what the judge I clerked for would have called "unseemly").

- Hudson also repeatedly references Freedman's letter last week that was stricken and the fact that the judge's order noted that future violations would incur sanctions. That Freedman letter sure is looking like a gift to Lively's lawyers right now, unless Freedman is playing some 3-dimensional chess I don't understand. It primed Liman to be more amenable to this motion.

It's a solid motion with strong legal support. I don't know how Liman will view it. Prior to last week, I would say that he'd probably deem it premature, that he'd want to rule on the MTDs first. Now I'm not so sure -- the order to strike last week was very aggressively written, indicating real disgust with Freedman's tactics there. That, combined with the MSG statement and totally ignoring the deadline to request amendment even after Liman denied the request for extension is making me think this has a good shot.

Then the question will be what he awards. Just an FYI for the uninitiated, but rewards of attorneys fees are often extremely contested and can drag on for long after a court case concludes, because the lawyers will argue about whether the fees are appropriate. I work in an area where we wind up having to look at these conflicts extensively and they can be quite involved.

Dp. To clarify for those who don’t know, the legal fees here would almost certainly be limited to those stemming *directly* from the letter that was stricken.

So a tiny drop in the bucket of the fees incurred in this ridiculous litigation.
It’s almost like this PP is trying to make this seem like a huge deal for Baldoni. When it’s not.

PP here and no, the fees wouldn't be related to the stricken letter at all, as the sanctions request is not for the letter.

They are asking for sanctions related to group pleading issue which, they say, is resulting in these plaintiffs having frivolous claims against Lively. They are explicitly asking for fees related to the motion for sanctions, which I agree would not be much.

However, I suspect they will also argue that by failing to either amend their complaint in a timely way, or respond to the safe harbor letters sent in April, these plaintiffs have forced Lively to incur additional expenses. These may be related specifically to discovery, and may be why they also filed some discovery-related motions as well. They are also arguing that awarding fees for a Rule 11 is not meant to simply compensate the filer, but to serve as a deterrent for filing frivolous claims. So they will argue that in order to properly deter this kind of thing (I think they will argue that the group pleading was essentially intentional in order to harass and prolong litigation), the fees awarded can't just be nominal. They are also going out of their way to cite Freedman's statements to press that may be particularly offensive to the court, because they want to make it appear that Wayfarer/Freedman are taking great liberties with court time and goodwill in order to encourage a more painful punishment in order to rein them back in.

I'm not saying she'll get any of this. Just recounting what is argued in the motion and speculating a bit based on the arguments and case law they are bringing in here. It is their intention to make this painful for Wayfarer here, not to just score a little procedural victory.

They also filed a number of stays for discovery, based in part on group pleading, that were denied.

That's true, though the framing was not exactly just on the group pleading. They wanted to stay discovery like NYT because of the pending MTDs, and Liman said no. However, correct me if I'm wrong, but his reasoning wasn't that the group pleading isn't a problem (the opposite, he's been vocal about the group pleading and basically told Freedman to file an amended complaint and then Freedman didn't, which is wild), but more that since discovery has to happen for Lively's complaint anyway and the issues are overlapping it doesn't make sense to stay discovery between these parties, as we know for sure that there will still be claims between them one way or another even after MTDs. Whereas for NYT, if their MTD is granted, that's it for them, plus they have some heightened concerns around disclosing journalistic methods.

However, that doesn't meant that if Wayfarer filed discovery requests that go *right* to the group pleading issue, that Liman would force Lively to produce. For instance, if Wayfarer has discovery requests that are clearly fishing expeditions for extortion claims they have not actually articulated yet (because they've rolled Abel/Nathan/Sarowitz into the alleged extortion for Baldoni/Heath), I could see Liman both refusing to compel production and potentially viewing that as related to potential sanctions, since Lively will have incurred fees for everything related to such a request.

I'm speculating though. We don't know exactly what has been requested in discovery for the most part. But that's one way that it could come into play on this motion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think part of the strategy here is to make a showy motion for sanctions against Freedman in part to beg the question: if the VanZan lawsuit was such a miscarriage of justice, why haven't they filed for sanctions against Lively and Manatt? By filing this motion, they can now respond to accusations of wrongdoing on VanZan with "so file for sanctions."

There are many, many irregular things about this litigation, on both sides. Which is why I am skeptical when people say things like "oh well I've never seen a successful Rule 11 filing." Same, but I've never seen as comprehensive and problematic a group pleading issue as Freedman has in this complaint. It's sticky and I'm surprised it hasn't been addressed. I'd never seen a letter to the court like the one Freedman filed last week, and certainly nothing like that affidavit. I have seen bench slaps as strong as Liman's last week, but not for this stage of litigation and not regarding something so.... bizarre.

I truly don't know what Liman will do with this motion and I no longer have a good sense of how the MTDs will shake out. I think we are reaching a critical point with the case where they are going to have to do a big hearing on everything pending and have it out, and then Liman will decided everything at once. And when I say "big hearing," I mean potentially a multi-day in person hearing this summer. Nothing like the little status conference back in February. A lot of issues are coming to a head at once and they are going to have to be decided together. And I think it's very hard to guess what the outcome of such a hearing could be because of the interconnected nature of all these issues -- the MTDs, this motion, and the ongoing discovery disputes. Which are likely about to get spicier because we are getting closer to deposition time.

I think Liman is going to continue to mostly ignore this case until he gets around to it. There’s much more serious cases on his docket. This entertainment lawsuit is likely a low priority. It took him a year to rule on Bravo’s MTD in the Leah McSweeney case, and when he did, it was a denial.

I agree with the PPs who say the sanctions motion was intended to get the judge to speed up ruling on the MTDs, but I don’t think it will work. I’ve been saying for a while that I think Lively wants to have the MTDs ruled on before engaging in settlement talks. She’s been having a bad day pretty much ever since she opened this can of worms, and she wants to stop the bleeding.

[Anonymous]

I think the timing of Freedman's docket freakout last week is interesting because he know those Safe Harbor motions were filed 4/23, so he knew full well these sanctions motions were coming today. What did he do in advance of that to make himself some showy headlines, hmm? He launched his Taylor Swift show. I guess having Swift's name still in the headlines takes some of the heat from these sanction motions off him and his firm. Surely this factored into his docket sheet shenanigans calculus: You think you will try to sanction me? Wait until I accuse you of extortion of Taylor Swift!

Meanwhile, Freedman still isn't filing his own motions to compel on anything, including the subpoena. Why is that? I do not understand his reasoning there. Is he just underwater and only filing documents with actual deadlines (and sometimes not even those)?