Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

When he went on TMZ, he had the 4 claims he was going to amend written down in a notebook lol! He wasn't pulling it from nowhere; he planned those 4 claims, and two of them are claims the judge specifically told him not to replead.

He also had to consult his notebook to remember Jen Abel's name and her firm. Does he even know who he's representing here? If I were her I might be wondering about another lawyer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

Responding to myself to note that even so, I do agree with the prior PPs who say it’s uncharacteristic for Freedman not to release any statement on the day of, and there may be some disarray. He might have at least said we are looking at the decision etc. For him, it’s unusual (and remember, CA is 3 hours earlier).

Yes, this is the man who leaked the CRD to TMZ and other outlets at 3am after being contacted by the NYT the evening prior. I struggle to believe that after Monday's decision, Freedman wrapped up his workday, went home and had dinner and maybe watched some TV with his wife, got a good night's sleep, and then reached out to TMZ at the start of his workday the next day.

I suspect his clients were livid about the decision and there was likely a lot of internal strife over what to do. I would also expect this to be complicated by the fact that these are not regular clients -- Baldoni is a very publicity-conscious actor/director, Abel and Nathan are publicists, and Sarowitz is a billionaire. I'm sure when everything is going well, as has been the case for much of this year, it's easy for them to coalesce around Freedman who has been so successful at dominating the narrative. But I would NOT want to in the room or on the phone with this particular group of clients the day the MTD dismissal came out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

This is not a "totally standard" case. Have you worked on cases that produced 800+ threads on DCUM? That spawned a half dozen subreddits dedicated just to following the minutia of the case? Where legal and celebrity podcasts issued "special reports" when the judged handed down a decision on MTDs? This is an unusual case and cannot be handled the "standard" way. Previously this has actually benefitted Freedman, who has a style tailor made for this kind of case, and hurt Lively, whose lawyers are clearly not used to this kind of coverage and scrutiny. But this week was a role reversal as Freedman got caught flat footed and Lively's team made hay with this decision.

And actually Freedman's statement about what claims they plan to refile does matter from a PR perspective. As soon as he stated there were four claims they planned to refile, Reddit and the Tik tokkers who follow the case immediately jumped all over it, figuring out which ones he meant since, of course, it was widely reported on Monday (correctly) that Judge Liman's decision only left two claims that could be refiled in an amended complaint. Now a lot of JB fans believe he actually has four, that the mainstream media got it wrong on Monday (they didn't), and that Justin will shortly be refiling his complain with four claims. If he files with only two, this will create a news story about how Freedman lied or got it wrong. If he refiles with four, the judge will respond very negatively (the judge's order is very clear on which claims he may refile) and that will create a news cycle about that.

So actually Freedman has guaranteed a negative news cycle surrounding the amended complaint when it gets filed. That's not smart. You't think given that he had overnight to review the judge's decision, he wouldn't have made such a glaring error in their one official statement to the press.

Yes, perfectly stated. 💯. Thank you!!!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When he went on TMZ, he had the 4 claims he was going to amend written down in a notebook lol! He wasn't pulling it from nowhere; he planned those 4 claims, and two of them are claims the judge specifically told him not to replead.

He also had to consult his notebook to remember Jen Abel's name and her firm. Does he even know who he's representing here? If I were her I might be wondering about another lawyer.

I've seen murmurs on Reddit about how active Freedman's current caseload is and that he has several other cases in very critical stages of litigation (I know one is the FKA Twigs trial, and he's representing Vin Diesel in that harassment case that just came up). Freedman's handled plenty of high profile cases before but, like, insider LA high profile. Not this. I bet he's drowning in work right now and his firm is not large and he doesn't have a true #2 on this case, someone whose profile is close to as high as his who can speak authoritatively to the press or handle major issues as they arise. Gottlieb has Esra Hudson, but Freedman's NY counsel is much lower profile and Ellyn Garafolo is a trial specialist who usually doesn't handle this aspect of the case (and has her own full schedule).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

This is not a "totally standard" case. Have you worked on cases that produced 800+ threads on DCUM? That spawned a half dozen subreddits dedicated just to following the minutia of the case? Where legal and celebrity podcasts issued "special reports" when the judged handed down a decision on MTDs? This is an unusual case and cannot be handled the "standard" way. Previously this has actually benefitted Freedman, who has a style tailor made for this kind of case, and hurt Lively, whose lawyers are clearly not used to this kind of coverage and scrutiny. But this week was a role reversal as Freedman got caught flat footed and Lively's team made hay with this decision.

And actually Freedman's statement about what claims they plan to refile does matter from a PR perspective. As soon as he stated there were four claims they planned to refile, Reddit and the Tik tokkers who follow the case immediately jumped all over it, figuring out which ones he meant since, of course, it was widely reported on Monday (correctly) that Judge Liman's decision only left two claims that could be refiled in an amended complaint. Now a lot of JB fans believe he actually has four, that the mainstream media got it wrong on Monday (they didn't), and that Justin will shortly be refiling his complain with four claims. If he files with only two, this will create a news story about how Freedman lied or got it wrong. If he refiles with four, the judge will respond very negatively (the judge's order is very clear on which claims he may refile) and that will create a news cycle about that.

So actually Freedman has guaranteed a negative news cycle surrounding the amended complaint when it gets filed. That's not smart. You't think given that he had overnight to review the judge's decision, he wouldn't have made such a glaring error in their one official statement to the press.

I’m the PP and I’m not sure where I said that it’s a ‘standard’ case. In fact I mentioned that in the cases I was referring to, crisis PR was hired. So not standard. And yes, I’ve worked on cases that were the subject of VERY active news cycles, one of them went on for several years. A close colleague handles litigations involving a person we all know who is in the news daily.

I’m not quite sure I understand the obsession with freedman here and the details of his statement. When I first started working around PR, I assumed detailed statements made sense. But then I learned, no one cares or remembers much other than the overall gist. And most people do not care about the lawyers. I wish!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details, just the overall message.

Do you know these lawyers personally? Are you a lawyer? I’ve heard of freedman because he represents famous clients, but I would never normally see the names of lawyers in PR statements and I think 99.99 percent of people don’t know or care either way. My colleagues and I laugh bc when one of our cases makes it in the news, it’s so very rare to see lawyer names mentioned. People don’t notice or care. But you seem to.

It seems very personal to you.

I am a lawyer (I wouldn’t expect a non-lawyer to figure the claim tracing I did above out, except maybe a very good paralegal) and while my firm never goes on TMZ, we do get quoted in news articles, especially legal pubs. If we made a mistake like this about the remaining claims we had in a lawsuit in one of those, it would mean an immediate client call to do damage control. Whoever’s mistake it was would get reprimanded. People woukd “care about the details” lolol.

But Freedman is in charge of this sh!t show so maybe when he makes mistakes — like this or like not ever filing an amended complaint so that nearly all of Baldoni’s claims get dismissed *poof* — maybe the client doesn’t know how to reprimand him. Since he handled the PR so brilliantly! But on the legal part of being a lawyer, he is sucking pretty hard, turns out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When he went on TMZ, he had the 4 claims he was going to amend written down in a notebook lol! He wasn't pulling it from nowhere; he planned those 4 claims, and two of them are claims the judge specifically told him not to replead.

He also had to consult his notebook to remember Jen Abel's name and her firm. Does he even know who he's representing here? If I were her I might be wondering about another lawyer.

I've seen murmurs on Reddit about how active Freedman's current caseload is and that he has several other cases in very critical stages of litigation (I know one is the FKA Twigs trial, and he's representing Vin Diesel in that harassment case that just came up). Freedman's handled plenty of high profile cases before but, like, insider LA high profile. Not this. I bet he's drowning in work right now and his firm is not large and he doesn't have a true #2 on this case, someone whose profile is close to as high as his who can speak authoritatively to the press or handle major issues as they arise. Gottlieb has Esra Hudson, but Freedman's NY counsel is much lower profile and Ellyn Garafolo is a trial specialist who usually doesn't handle this aspect of the case (and has her own full schedule).

That’s curious that you track a lawyer’s schedule. How do you know ellyn G’s schedule? She’s not well known outside that world.

Have you been up against Freedman before and lost? I’m puzzled by the obsession with him. I sometimes feel testy with opposing counsel during litigations but it’s not uncommon for lawyers to meet for drinks after all is said and done :)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details, just the overall message.

Do you know these lawyers personally? Are you a lawyer? I’ve heard of freedman because he represents famous clients, but I would never normally see the names of lawyers in PR statements and I think 99.99 percent of people don’t know or care either way. My colleagues and I laugh bc when one of our cases makes it in the news, it’s so very rare to see lawyer names mentioned. People don’t notice or care. But you seem to.

It seems very personal to you.

I am a lawyer (I wouldn’t expect a non-lawyer to figure the claim tracing I did above out, except maybe a very good paralegal) and while my firm never goes on TMZ, we do get quoted in news articles, especially legal pubs. If we made a mistake like this about the remaining claims we had in a lawsuit in one of those, it would mean an immediate client call to do damage control. Whoever’s mistake it was would get reprimanded. People woukd “care about the details” lolol.

But Freedman is in charge of this sh!t show so maybe when he makes mistakes — like this or like not ever filing an amended complaint so that nearly all of Baldoni’s claims get dismissed *poof* — maybe the client doesn’t know how to reprimand him. Since he handled the PR so brilliantly! But on the legal part of being a lawyer, he is sucking pretty hard, turns out.

Well, I’m not entirely sure it was a mistake but in any event, the crisis PR I worked with would never suggest going out with some other statement like you’re suggesting. ‘Oh we said we’d re file 4 claims, but we actually meant 3’. It’s really silly to think anyone would care. It’s not like PR statements are written guarantees!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

This is not a "totally standard" case. Have you worked on cases that produced 800+ threads on DCUM? That spawned a half dozen subreddits dedicated just to following the minutia of the case? Where legal and celebrity podcasts issued "special reports" when the judged handed down a decision on MTDs? This is an unusual case and cannot be handled the "standard" way. Previously this has actually benefitted Freedman, who has a style tailor made for this kind of case, and hurt Lively, whose lawyers are clearly not used to this kind of coverage and scrutiny. But this week was a role reversal as Freedman got caught flat footed and Lively's team made hay with this decision.

And actually Freedman's statement about what claims they plan to refile does matter from a PR perspective. As soon as he stated there were four claims they planned to refile, Reddit and the Tik tokkers who follow the case immediately jumped all over it, figuring out which ones he meant since, of course, it was widely reported on Monday (correctly) that Judge Liman's decision only left two claims that could be refiled in an amended complaint. Now a lot of JB fans believe he actually has four, that the mainstream media got it wrong on Monday (they didn't), and that Justin will shortly be refiling his complain with four claims. If he files with only two, this will create a news story about how Freedman lied or got it wrong. If he refiles with four, the judge will respond very negatively (the judge's order is very clear on which claims he may refile) and that will create a news cycle about that.

So actually Freedman has guaranteed a negative news cycle surrounding the amended complaint when it gets filed. That's not smart. You't think given that he had overnight to review the judge's decision, he wouldn't have made such a glaring error in their one official statement to the press.

I’m the PP and I’m not sure where I said that it’s a ‘standard’ case. In fact I mentioned that in the cases I was referring to, crisis PR was hired. So not standard. And yes, I’ve worked on cases that were the subject of VERY active news cycles, one of them went on for several years. A close colleague handles litigations involving a person we all know who is in the news daily.

I’m not quite sure I understand the obsession with freedman here and the details of his statement. When I first started working around PR, I assumed detailed statements made sense. But then I learned, no one cares or remembers much other than the overall gist. And most people do not care about the lawyers. I wish!

I talk about Freedman a lot here because when I started following this case, Baldoni supporters thought he was amazing, and after watching some of his legal moves, I am pretty sure he is just a charlatan in a suit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When he went on TMZ, he had the 4 claims he was going to amend written down in a notebook lol! He wasn't pulling it from nowhere; he planned those 4 claims, and two of them are claims the judge specifically told him not to replead.

He also had to consult his notebook to remember Jen Abel's name and her firm. Does he even know who he's representing here? If I were her I might be wondering about another lawyer.

I've seen murmurs on Reddit about how active Freedman's current caseload is and that he has several other cases in very critical stages of litigation (I know one is the FKA Twigs trial, and he's representing Vin Diesel in that harassment case that just came up). Freedman's handled plenty of high profile cases before but, like, insider LA high profile. Not this. I bet he's drowning in work right now and his firm is not large and he doesn't have a true #2 on this case, someone whose profile is close to as high as his who can speak authoritatively to the press or handle major issues as they arise. Gottlieb has Esra Hudson, but Freedman's NY counsel is much lower profile and Ellyn Garafolo is a trial specialist who usually doesn't handle this aspect of the case (and has her own full schedule).

That’s curious that you track a lawyer’s schedule. How do you know ellyn G’s schedule? She’s not well known outside that world.

Have you been up against Freedman before and lost? I’m puzzled by the obsession with him. I sometimes feel testy with opposing counsel during litigations but it’s not uncommon for lawyers to meet for drinks after all is said and done :)

Where did I say I track EG's schedule? I just said I know it's "full" which is not hard to know. Do you know a lot of partners at litigation boutiques with a lot of high profile clients who have quiet, mild schedules?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details, just the overall message.

Do you know these lawyers personally? Are you a lawyer? I’ve heard of freedman because he represents famous clients, but I would never normally see the names of lawyers in PR statements and I think 99.99 percent of people don’t know or care either way. My colleagues and I laugh bc when one of our cases makes it in the news, it’s so very rare to see lawyer names mentioned. People don’t notice or care. But you seem to.

It seems very personal to you.

I am a lawyer (I wouldn’t expect a non-lawyer to figure the claim tracing I did above out, except maybe a very good paralegal) and while my firm never goes on TMZ, we do get quoted in news articles, especially legal pubs. If we made a mistake like this about the remaining claims we had in a lawsuit in one of those, it would mean an immediate client call to do damage control. Whoever’s mistake it was would get reprimanded. People woukd “care about the details” lolol.

But Freedman is in charge of this sh!t show so maybe when he makes mistakes — like this or like not ever filing an amended complaint so that nearly all of Baldoni’s claims get dismissed *poof* — maybe the client doesn’t know how to reprimand him. Since he handled the PR so brilliantly! But on the legal part of being a lawyer, he is sucking pretty hard, turns out.

Well, I’m not entirely sure it was a mistake but in any event, the crisis PR I worked with would never suggest going out with some other statement like you’re suggesting. ‘Oh we said we’d re file 4 claims, but we actually meant 3’. It’s really silly to think anyone would care. It’s not like PR statements are written guarantees!

He should definitely say that. That would be wrong, also, so very on brand for him. He only has 2 remaining claims.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details, just the overall message.

Do you know these lawyers personally? Are you a lawyer? I’ve heard of freedman because he represents famous clients, but I would never normally see the names of lawyers in PR statements and I think 99.99 percent of people don’t know or care either way. My colleagues and I laugh bc when one of our cases makes it in the news, it’s so very rare to see lawyer names mentioned. People don’t notice or care. But you seem to.

It seems very personal to you.

I am a lawyer (I wouldn’t expect a non-lawyer to figure the claim tracing I did above out, except maybe a very good paralegal) and while my firm never goes on TMZ, we do get quoted in news articles, especially legal pubs. If we made a mistake like this about the remaining claims we had in a lawsuit in one of those, it would mean an immediate client call to do damage control. Whoever’s mistake it was would get reprimanded. People woukd “care about the details” lolol.

But Freedman is in charge of this sh!t show so maybe when he makes mistakes — like this or like not ever filing an amended complaint so that nearly all of Baldoni’s claims get dismissed *poof* — maybe the client doesn’t know how to reprimand him. Since he handled the PR so brilliantly! But on the legal part of being a lawyer, he is sucking pretty hard, turns out.

Well, I’m not entirely sure it was a mistake but in any event, the crisis PR I worked with would never suggest going out with some other statement like you’re suggesting. ‘Oh we said we’d re file 4 claims, but we actually meant 3’. It’s really silly to think anyone would care. It’s not like PR statements are written guarantees!

I'm sorry, the bolded, as a comment on this case? Babe. If he doesn't file four claims, people will care.

[Anonymous]

I don’t understand why Baldoni supporters thought are NOT obsessed with Freedman’s lack of legal skills. He’s effing over your guy! At this point I hope he stays in and remains in charge of everything because he is pretty clearly outmatched by Willkie and Manatt. And I can post all his dumb mistakes in here.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Reading through Liman's Opinion dismissing Wayfarer etc's claims, here were a few excerpts from the Extortion claim section that I enjoyed:

Demanding harassment free working conditions /= extortion: "Even if they turn out to be unneeded, an employee can insist on protections at workplace for sexual harassment without being accused of extortion. If an employer accedes, it cannot later claim to be a victim of the employee’s wrongful threats."

Hoist by his own petard: "Although the Wayfarer Parties allege that they did not believe Lively deserved a producer credit or p.g.a. mark, Dkt. No. 50 ¶¶ 153–155, they also allege that Lively took over significant production responsibilities, see id. ¶ 296 (stating that Lively used baseless sexual harassment allegations “to assert unilateral control over every aspect of the production”); id. ¶ 344 (alleging that Lively seized creative control over the production and the Wayfarer Parties “were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, and market a film”); cf. United States v. Jackson, 180 F.3d 55, 70–72 (2d Cir.), on reh’g, 196 F.3d 383 (2d Cir. 1999) (suggesting that a threat is not wrongful if it has a “nexus to a plausible claim of right”)."

Hard bargaining /= extortion: "The fact that a plaintiff decides it is more financially beneficial to acquiesce to a demand than to sue does not mean the plaintiff lacks an adequate remedy in damages. Having made their decision, the Wayfarer Parties cannot now seek to recover in damages for what they would have obtained had they not agreed and had Lively promoted some different version of the film more consistent with the Wayfarer Parties’ artistic vision."

I also thought it was interesting in the TMZ clip that Freedman said he was given leave by the judge to file an amended complaint for the 4 following claims, because Judge Liman specifically forbids Freedman from amending for two of these lol:

1. Intentional interference of a contractual agreement (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
2. Intentional interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds);
3. Negligent interference with prospective economic advantage (a/g Lively and Reynolds? not sure);
4. Breach of implied duty of covenant and good faith and fair dealing (only a/g Lively).

When you look at the opinion itself, Liman explicitly says in two places that he grants Wayfarer etc leave to amend only for the following two claims: tortious interference with contract and breach of implied contract.

And footnote 66 p.130 specifically lays out that the court will not permit amendment for the following claims (some of which appear on Freedman's list):
* False light
* Breach of implied covenant;
* Intentional or negligent interference with prospective economic relations;
* Promissory fraud.

If you specifically go back to Wayfarer's Amended Complaint and look at the counts, you can track that Judge Liman means to allow Wayfarer to amend ONLY for the following:

1. Liman says "Tortious interference with contract" which tracks to Count 5 in the amended complaint: Intentional Interference with Contractual Relations (involving the WME interference);
2. Liman says "Breach of implied contract" which tracks to Count 4 in the amended complaint: Breach of Implied Covenant of Good Faith and Fair Dealing (involving the contract, if it exists, between Lively and Wayfarer).

Freedman says that he is going to include negligent and intentional interference with prospective economic advantage in the amended complaint, which tracks to counts 7 and 6 of the amended complaint involving the WME contract. However, Liman explicitly forbids Freedman for amending these interference with prospective economic advantage claims due to futility! He explains that the failure of the defamation claim against Reynolds is fatal to these economic advantage claims, since interference needs to be through a wrongful act and Liman found Reynolds statement could not be considered as such.

So, a day later and Freedman is already spouting wild nonsense and either does not understand Judge Liman's opinion better than me, who looked at this for 20 minutes, or alternatively Freedman has decided to explicitly ignore it. A++ as usual Mssr. Freedman.

This is excellent, thank you for putting it together.

Freedman looks very out of the loop on this -- no reply until Tuesday and then his response seems to have factual errors that will come back to bite him. Either he'll finally read the decision closely enough to understand they cannot replead everything he says he's going to, OR he'll replead it all and get bench slapped for violating the judge's order.

Dp and I don’t post much on here but isn’t freedman Baldonis lawyer? How is he ‘out of the loop’ for not responding to a court decision from Monday on… Tuesday… ? Or do you mean something else? Because that seems pretty timely to me!!

DP but in this high profile cases it's typical for the lawyers to comment immediately in the articles that come out in the hours after the decision drops, even if it's just to say they plan to appeal. So yes I think it's unusual that Freedman waited a day, and then in addition, isn't reading the decision correctly according to PP, even with that extra time.

Dp. I’m a litigator and have worked with crisis PR for some high profile litigations, and I don’t agree. We would never want to completely rush a statement without taking a beat to pause and gather our thoughts. As long as a statement came out around the same news cycle, it would be fine and perfectly industry typical (not that there’s a hard and fast rule as this Pp seems to want to think - lol).

As far as not reading the decision ‘correctly’, that only matters when they file! It seems that the point they wants to make is that they plan to continue, and that’s really the only message that matters. Totally standard stuff ime.

I can see taking more than 4 hours to respond because it’s a longer decision.

But if, as you say, you need to “gather your thoughts,” that extra time should really ensure that your lead attorney does not then turn around and get the claims you are refiling wrong. You would not see Manatt or Willkie making this stupid mistake tbh. You don’t overstate what you’re going to come back fighting on, either to your client (who Freedman should have consulted with before going public on TMZ lol) or to the public.

This just emphasizes to me how Freedman is absolutely obsessed with PR to the point where him being on TV is more important than what he is actually saying. Wtf is wrong with this dude? He took a whole day and didn’t figure out his remaining claims properly, which I did in 20 minutes? Remember Succession? This is sh!t show at the clown factory stuff.

I don’t think anyone really cares about the details, just the overall message.

Do you know these lawyers personally? Are you a lawyer? I’ve heard of freedman because he represents famous clients, but I would never normally see the names of lawyers in PR statements and I think 99.99 percent of people don’t know or care either way. My colleagues and I laugh bc when one of our cases makes it in the news, it’s so very rare to see lawyer names mentioned. People don’t notice or care. But you seem to.

It seems very personal to you.

I am a lawyer (I wouldn’t expect a non-lawyer to figure the claim tracing I did above out, except maybe a very good paralegal) and while my firm never goes on TMZ, we do get quoted in news articles, especially legal pubs. If we made a mistake like this about the remaining claims we had in a lawsuit in one of those, it would mean an immediate client call to do damage control. Whoever’s mistake it was would get reprimanded. People woukd “care about the details” lolol.

But Freedman is in charge of this sh!t show so maybe when he makes mistakes — like this or like not ever filing an amended complaint so that nearly all of Baldoni’s claims get dismissed *poof* — maybe the client doesn’t know how to reprimand him. Since he handled the PR so brilliantly! But on the legal part of being a lawyer, he is sucking pretty hard, turns out.

Well, I’m not entirely sure it was a mistake but in any event, the crisis PR I worked with would never suggest going out with some other statement like you’re suggesting. ‘Oh we said we’d re file 4 claims, but we actually meant 3’. It’s really silly to think anyone would care. It’s not like PR statements are written guarantees!

Also, you read me wrong. I wasn’t suggesting Freedman should put out another statement correcting his misstatement. We might try to just hide the mistake to the press or release another statement when we filed the complaint. But we WOULD need to call the client almost immediately to do damage control there, so they wouldn’t expect 4 claims when we are only permitted to file two. And someone would get shouted at, probably.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When he went on TMZ, he had the 4 claims he was going to amend written down in a notebook lol! He wasn't pulling it from nowhere; he planned those 4 claims, and two of them are claims the judge specifically told him not to replead.

He also had to consult his notebook to remember Jen Abel's name and her firm. Does he even know who he's representing here? If I were her I might be wondering about another lawyer.

I've seen murmurs on Reddit about how active Freedman's current caseload is and that he has several other cases in very critical stages of litigation (I know one is the FKA Twigs trial, and he's representing Vin Diesel in that harassment case that just came up). Freedman's handled plenty of high profile cases before but, like, insider LA high profile. Not this. I bet he's drowning in work right now and his firm is not large and he doesn't have a true #2 on this case, someone whose profile is close to as high as his who can speak authoritatively to the press or handle major issues as they arise. Gottlieb has Esra Hudson, but Freedman's NY counsel is much lower profile and Ellyn Garafolo is a trial specialist who usually doesn't handle this aspect of the case (and has her own full schedule).

I agree with this also — I don’t think his firm has a very deep bench or even that many lawyers, frankly. His major associates doing all the discovery responses have got to be completely exhausted and possibly fed up, because i would not expect someone like Freedman to be a delight to work for (though i could be wrong).