Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

I think it's possible Wallace/Nathan claimed they were doing more than they did to justify those fees. But the following is one text I can't get out of my head:

"We've also started to see a shift on social, due largely to Jed and his team's efforts to shift the narrative towards shining a spotlight on Blake and Ryan."

While I think a lot of their efforts could have been geared toward disseminating positive info about Justin and not being negative to Blake and Ryan, this text explicitly states that they were seeding information about Blake and Ryan. I don't think Jed and Melissa ever addressed this specific text in his filings, but hopefully someone can correct me if I'm wrong?

I still think the backlash was 99% organic, and anything Jed did had a negligible effect, as many of us have really disliked Blake for years because of her support of Woody Allen, plantation wedding, etc. and that graph Blake provided shows negative sentiment had been occurring prior to Jed's hiring.

I actually think this might be the outcome and it will be unsatisfying for everyone. The text messages sure do make it seem like they planted at least a few stories or bots that were anti Blake and they did it because they were worried her concerns would come to light. But also, it was dwarfed by a lot of hate that was already happening and picked up on that and fueled it and it becomes impossible to really prove it because the natural algorithm takes over and then people organically post more negative stories, etc.

So it would be funny is the jury does find Justin liable for some retaliatory acts, but also the damages are quite low. Then everyone comes out looking bad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

Right but hiring TAG and Wallace and directing them to smear Lively is an "actual act of retaliation." It's not just thinking about it. I am not sure how the law handles a situation where the defendant clearly had every intent of retaliating and (1) hires people to do it, (2) tells them explicitly to commit acts of retaliation, (3) is told by these people that these retaliatory acts are happening and have been successful, and then (4) pays these people for the retaliation. But turns out the people lied and never actually did anything, just took credit for organic bad press that was happening online.

Please note I'm talking totally hypothetically here -- I'm not saying this has been proven, I'm just trying to understand what the outcome would be if what I just described was proven.

I don’t think she has three and four.

There are multiple texts where Abel and Nathan either report directly to Baldoni/Heath or talk about reporting to them about the success of the activities, including praising the work of "Jed and his team." That would seem to fulfill #3, especially if discovery reveals additional communications where Nathan and Wallace talk about the "success" of their activities.

For #4, presumably these people got paid. There will either be payments or not. Certainly they were contracted for work they expected to be paid for. If they weren't paid, yes, the whole thing falls apart.

But what if they said they'd succeeded, and they were paid, and then at trial Nathan and Wallace testify that they didn't actually do the retaliatory acts they were hired to do? What happens then?

First of all, clearly you are a Blake bot pretending to be a Baldoni supporter, but no matter. The concern trolling is over the top.

The existence of the text you repeatedly rely upon is no secret, Blake mentions in nearly all her pleadings. Presumably they have testimony and other topics that negates the inference you are relying on, or they would be more seriously pursuing settlement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

Right but hiring TAG and Wallace and directing them to smear Lively is an "actual act of retaliation." It's not just thinking about it. I am not sure how the law handles a situation where the defendant clearly had every intent of retaliating and (1) hires people to do it, (2) tells them explicitly to commit acts of retaliation, (3) is told by these people that these retaliatory acts are happening and have been successful, and then (4) pays these people for the retaliation. But turns out the people lied and never actually did anything, just took credit for organic bad press that was happening online.

Please note I'm talking totally hypothetically here -- I'm not saying this has been proven, I'm just trying to understand what the outcome would be if what I just described was proven.

I don’t think she has three and four.

There are multiple texts where Abel and Nathan either report directly to Baldoni/Heath or talk about reporting to them about the success of the activities, including praising the work of "Jed and his team." That would seem to fulfill #3, especially if discovery reveals additional communications where Nathan and Wallace talk about the "success" of their activities.

For #4, presumably these people got paid. There will either be payments or not. Certainly they were contracted for work they expected to be paid for. If they weren't paid, yes, the whole thing falls apart.

But what if they said they'd succeeded, and they were paid, and then at trial Nathan and Wallace testify that they didn't actually do the retaliatory acts they were hired to do? What happens then?

Except there is already sworn testimony that contradicts those texts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

I'm a Lively supporter and this was the last comment I made to this thread. Were Lively supports not supposed to comment on this topic -- I see PP doesn't seem to want comments from, as she endearingly calls us, "Lively bots"?? Wut?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pro-JB and I feel like notactuallygolden is really bad at predicting things even though I enjoy her videos. What's the disconnect here? Is Liman acting unusually for a judge? Is notactuallygolden just not as knowledgeable about federal courts? Is notactuallygolden subconsciously giving best-case-scenarios interpretations of Justin's side because he's more believable/her followers are generally more pro-JB?

I don't know where to get honest answers to these questions, because I feel like the pro-JB side will bite my head off for questioning her, while the pro-Lively side hates Freedman and can't see things objectively either. Any neutral lawyers here who can weigh in?

As a long time practicing litigator, it’s Liman. His rulings aren’t wrong, but they are unusual. We saw it from the beginning with his refusal to grant assented-to extensions.

I think some of his rulings are unusual, but not others (e.g., the fact NAG left any possibility the NYT suit wouldn't get dismissed was bizarre; whatever the chat boards said, pretty much every lawyer I know thought the suit was borderline frivilous/sanction worthy). I do think she's giving a pro-JB gloss to her interpretations of filings -- unclear if she means to or is just unconsciously biased.

Can you link to these lawyers and their analysis? Curious

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I think happened, and continues to happen, is Blake is unlikable. That’s been the case since her attacks on Leighton in Gossip Girls days. It all gets amplified by social media algorithms. A creator posts Blake in a cringeworthy interview and gets enormous amounts of interaction. They see the stats and have incentive to post more negative things about Blake because it gets likes and shares, and so on. The algorithms boost these posts because of their popularity and that begets more likes and shares. Not sure if that makes it organic but certainly has nothing to do with WF. The content makers aren’t responding to commands from WF, they are responding to what gets them likes and followers.

I mean, there is all of that too. Blake is extremely unlikeable and has been her whole career. She provided a TON of content whatever they did or didn't do that I dont think all or even most actresses would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

Right but hiring TAG and Wallace and directing them to smear Lively is an "actual act of retaliation." It's not just thinking about it. I am not sure how the law handles a situation where the defendant clearly had every intent of retaliating and (1) hires people to do it, (2) tells them explicitly to commit acts of retaliation, (3) is told by these people that these retaliatory acts are happening and have been successful, and then (4) pays these people for the retaliation. But turns out the people lied and never actually did anything, just took credit for organic bad press that was happening online.

Please note I'm talking totally hypothetically here -- I'm not saying this has been proven, I'm just trying to understand what the outcome would be if what I just described was proven.

I don’t think she has three and four.

There are multiple texts where Abel and Nathan either report directly to Baldoni/Heath or talk about reporting to them about the success of the activities, including praising the work of "Jed and his team." That would seem to fulfill #3, especially if discovery reveals additional communications where Nathan and Wallace talk about the "success" of their activities.

For #4, presumably these people got paid. There will either be payments or not. Certainly they were contracted for work they expected to be paid for. If they weren't paid, yes, the whole thing falls apart.

But what if they said they'd succeeded, and they were paid, and then at trial Nathan and Wallace testify that they didn't actually do the retaliatory acts they were hired to do? What happens then?

Except there is already sworn testimony that contradicts those texts.

Should make for an interesting deposition at least.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

Right but hiring TAG and Wallace and directing them to smear Lively is an "actual act of retaliation." It's not just thinking about it. I am not sure how the law handles a situation where the defendant clearly had every intent of retaliating and (1) hires people to do it, (2) tells them explicitly to commit acts of retaliation, (3) is told by these people that these retaliatory acts are happening and have been successful, and then (4) pays these people for the retaliation. But turns out the people lied and never actually did anything, just took credit for organic bad press that was happening online.

Please note I'm talking totally hypothetically here -- I'm not saying this has been proven, I'm just trying to understand what the outcome would be if what I just described was proven.

I don’t think she has three and four.

There are multiple texts where Abel and Nathan either report directly to Baldoni/Heath or talk about reporting to them about the success of the activities, including praising the work of "Jed and his team." That would seem to fulfill #3, especially if discovery reveals additional communications where Nathan and Wallace talk about the "success" of their activities.

For #4, presumably these people got paid. There will either be payments or not. Certainly they were contracted for work they expected to be paid for. If they weren't paid, yes, the whole thing falls apart.

But what if they said they'd succeeded, and they were paid, and then at trial Nathan and Wallace testify that they didn't actually do the retaliatory acts they were hired to do? What happens then?

Except there is already sworn testimony that contradicts those texts.

I guess you mean Wallace's declaration, filed for the purpose of defeating jurisdiction over him in NY? I cut and pasted part of his declaration below. I think it's possible that he leaves some opening, when he says that he's the only one at Street that was working on this, that he could have hired subcontractors. His other statements say that neither he nor Street posted anything on social media about IEWU, but did they have contractors doing this? Paragraph 18 might suggest not. But if this is all he was doing, and he was the only one at Street doing anything, what was so special about it that he was getting $90K for 3 months of work total? Reddit seems to think that that's a whole lot.

Excerpts from Wallace's Declaration (which is here: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.142.1_1.pdf):

16. My earliest involvement in my limited role concerning Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer was August 2024. I am the only employee of Street that engaged in that limited role. All of that limited work was done by me from Texas. None of that work was in New York. None of that work was directed at New York.

17. Neither I nor Street posted anything on social media on behalf of the Wayfarer parties or about Lively, Reynolds, It Ends With Us, or any of Lively’s or Reynold’s businesses.

18. Neither I nor Street have ever asked or directed anyone to post about, comment on, or like any social media posts about It Ends With Us, Wayfarer, Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, or any of Lively’s or Reynolds’s businesses or family.

19. I never published, directly or indirectly, any information or content (negative or otherwise) regarding Lively.

20. I have never met or interacted with Lively.

21. I do not have a “digital army” in Los Angeles, in New York, or anywhere else. I do not have, work with, or direct a team in Hawai‘i. I have never been to Hawai‘i.

22. I have an understanding of what a “social combat” or “social manipulation” plan could be, but that is not a service I provided related to It Ends With Us, Wayfarer, Justin Baldoni, Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, or any of Lively’s or Reynolds’s businesses or family.

23. I do not specialize in executing confidential and ‘untraceable’ campaigns across various social media platforms (including TikTok, Instagram, Reddit, and X) to shape public perception.

24. In early August, 2024, I was contacted by Melissa Nathan about Justin Baldoni and potential stories or social media attacks on him. My job was to read, analyze, and assess all forms of media and trends taking place with respect to various issues.

25. This job was in line with my work generally with respect to all forms of media. Specifically, for the events related to Mr. Baldoni, my limited job was to conduct analysis of the media climates. In doing so, I reviewed all forms of media, analyzed the sentiment of the coverage, and then provided updates on my observations. Most times, my feedback took the form of informal comments that I made to Ms. Nathan, who I understood to be in California. After passively observing the social media environment, I saw an organic outpouring of support for Justin Baldoni and the film. This observation led to my comment, “we are crushing it on Reddit.” My feeling, based on what I saw, was that no actions needed be taken at that time, and that everyone should let the sentiment on the social media unfold organically. In addition to observing that people on social media organically supported Mr. Baldoni, there appeared to be a dislike for Ms. Lively based on her tone-deaf promotion of the film. Therefore, my advice was not to do anything at that time and let the sentiment on social media continue to unfold organically.

26. My limited work related to Justin Baldoni concluded in early November 2024.

28. Because I provided feedback to Ms. Nathan, who I understood to be in California most if not all the time, I only considered the impact of my work to be in California. The goal of my work was to inform her and her team, who I anticipated would be in California. And I thought of her work as for Wayfarer Studios, which I knew and know to be based in California. In other words, I thought I was doing business and providing my services to individuals in California.

29. Neither I nor Street communicated or caused content to be provided to any journalists, content creators, or media entities anywhere, let alone New York. To be clear, I did not speak to any journalists at the New York Post or at the New York Times regarding the issues set forth in this lawsuit.

30. My role on social media was merely passive observation and analysis of the social media environment as it pertained to It Ends With Us.

31. Lively alleges, among other things, that I participated in a conspiracy to commit tortious conduct or unlawful acts against her. I did not. If that conspiracy even exists, which I doubt, I have no knowledge of it because I was not involved. I had (and have) no desire to torch Lively or her reputation, nor did I act on that imagined desire with anyone.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

Right but hiring TAG and Wallace and directing them to smear Lively is an "actual act of retaliation." It's not just thinking about it. I am not sure how the law handles a situation where the defendant clearly had every intent of retaliating and (1) hires people to do it, (2) tells them explicitly to commit acts of retaliation, (3) is told by these people that these retaliatory acts are happening and have been successful, and then (4) pays these people for the retaliation. But turns out the people lied and never actually did anything, just took credit for organic bad press that was happening online.

Please note I'm talking totally hypothetically here -- I'm not saying this has been proven, I'm just trying to understand what the outcome would be if what I just described was proven.

I don’t think she has three and four.

There are multiple texts where Abel and Nathan either report directly to Baldoni/Heath or talk about reporting to them about the success of the activities, including praising the work of "Jed and his team." That would seem to fulfill #3, especially if discovery reveals additional communications where Nathan and Wallace talk about the "success" of their activities.

For #4, presumably these people got paid. There will either be payments or not. Certainly they were contracted for work they expected to be paid for. If they weren't paid, yes, the whole thing falls apart.

But what if they said they'd succeeded, and they were paid, and then at trial Nathan and Wallace testify that they didn't actually do the retaliatory acts they were hired to do? What happens then?

First of all, clearly you are a Blake bot pretending to be a Baldoni supporter, but no matter. The concern trolling is over the top.

The existence of the text you repeatedly rely upon is no secret, Blake mentions in nearly all her pleadings. Presumably they have testimony and other topics that negates the inference you are relying on, or they would be more seriously pursuing settlement.

PP here. I'm a Lively supporter and never presented myself as a Baldoni supporter. I'm asking a genuine legal question I don't know the answer to, not trying to troll.

I'm not "relying" on a text, nor asserting the text is a secret. It exists, and indicates that Melissa Nathan and Jed Wallace at least presented to Baldoni and Wayfarer that their efforts on his behalf were successful. It is currently unclear to me if they were saying this because it was the truth or if it they were conveniently claiming that an organic round of very negative press against Lively was due to their efforts when it wasn't. I genuinely do not know the answer to that question.

If you don't know the answer to my legal question, you can just say "I don't know."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is actually how the Lively team intended this category to be interpreted, “but only the much smaller subset of those who do so on the behalf of or at the request of a given Wayfarer Party.” With that latitude, I think WF say none.

I think that's exactly what Lively was asking for. I think you are interpreting "on behalf of or at the request of" WAY too narrowly (and more narrowly than Liman) if you don't think this is what she was asking for. As part of a contract or as a subcontractor or implementer of a contract would meet this definition, as would bots controlled by a party meeting the previous definition.

Your definition is even more narrow. I doubt there are any such “contracts.”

And I quoted the exact language used by Liman so there isn’t any interpretation in there. But as a responding attorney, and I am an experienced litigator, I would feel very comfortable interpreting that phrase narrowly, given how Liman described it in his Order.

I was reading into you interpreting Liman's words as narrow/constraining. FWIW I think there is a very good chance there were contracts involved.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

I think the question would be if hiring someone itself counts as a retaliatory act. Hiring is easily distinguished from "thinking about" retaliation, so your straw man fails. That said, I don't know if you framed it as paying for a bad act that didn't occur if that would be sufficient or not (on the other hand, you might be able to frame it more favorably as paying to ensure negative stories came out; it might depend on the contract wording).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pro-JB and I feel like notactuallygolden is really bad at predicting things even though I enjoy her videos. What's the disconnect here? Is Liman acting unusually for a judge? Is notactuallygolden just not as knowledgeable about federal courts? Is notactuallygolden subconsciously giving best-case-scenarios interpretations of Justin's side because he's more believable/her followers are generally more pro-JB?

I don't know where to get honest answers to these questions, because I feel like the pro-JB side will bite my head off for questioning her, while the pro-Lively side hates Freedman and can't see things objectively either. Any neutral lawyers here who can weigh in?

As a long time practicing litigator, it’s Liman. His rulings aren’t wrong, but they are unusual. We saw it from the beginning with his refusal to grant assented-to extensions.

I think some of his rulings are unusual, but not others (e.g., the fact NAG left any possibility the NYT suit wouldn't get dismissed was bizarre; whatever the chat boards said, pretty much every lawyer I know thought the suit was borderline frivolous/sanction worthy). I do think she's giving a pro-JB gloss to her interpretations of filings -- unclear if she means to or is just unconsciously biased.

Can you link to these lawyers and their analysis? Curious

I'm not sure what you mean? Lawyers I know... in real life (specifically, as distinct from chat boards). I don't know any actual real life lawyers who thought the NYT suit wouldn't get tossed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

I think the question would be if hiring someone itself counts as a retaliatory act. Hiring is easily distinguished from "thinking about" retaliation, so your straw man fails. That said, I don't know if you framed it as paying for a bad act that didn't occur if that would be sufficient or not (on the other hand, you might be able to frame it more favorably as paying to ensure negative stories came out; it might depend on the contract wording).

She is going to need to show the hiring was retaliation to her claims of sexual harassment and not due to her threats and efforts to freeze him out of the movie. He has a right to seek help when being defamed. And yes, he can still use her behavior as a defense even if he can’t collect damages on it as a cause of action.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm pro-JB and I feel like notactuallygolden is really bad at predicting things even though I enjoy her videos. What's the disconnect here? Is Liman acting unusually for a judge? Is notactuallygolden just not as knowledgeable about federal courts? Is notactuallygolden subconsciously giving best-case-scenarios interpretations of Justin's side because he's more believable/her followers are generally more pro-JB?

I don't know where to get honest answers to these questions, because I feel like the pro-JB side will bite my head off for questioning her, while the pro-Lively side hates Freedman and can't see things objectively either. Any neutral lawyers here who can weigh in?

As a long time practicing litigator, it’s Liman. His rulings aren’t wrong, but they are unusual. We saw it from the beginning with his refusal to grant assented-to extensions.

I am pretty sure that PP responding above is a Baldoni supporter and not "neutral," which is what you asked for. I think saying that "The reason I've been calling everything wrong is wholly attributable to a renegade judge (who all but telegraphs some of his opinions in advance), and not to my own bad judgement" is a somewhat convenient take. I have practiced under judges like Liman before who keep to deadlines, don't extend the parties too much rope to hang themselves on, and are pretty no nonsense. Liman is pretty on brand for a federal judge in a busy district.

Strong disagree and original poster, google reviews of Louis Liman. There are sites that allow lawyers to do this and Liman was not well reviewed before he issued a single order in the Lively/Baldoni matter. Has a reputation with siding with the establishment.

Then shouldn't he be siding with Baldoni the harasser here, and not the harassee? He is a male judge after all. Conspiracy theories all the way down.

The establishment here is obviously Blake Lively and her husband.

It’s a little bit weird to pretend that a little up and coming production company like Wayfarer holds any power compared to the empire that Ryan Reynolds and Blake Lively control.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The more I think about it, the more I'm getting worried for JB over the retaliation claim, and like people here have been saying forever, I get that's why BL's lawyers want to focus on it. I genuinely think most of the negative press toward Blake was organic, and I'm not pro-BL, but I think it's worrisome if they can find even a handful of posts disparaging her that they can trace back to JB.

I don't think he hired Nathan because she spoke up against sexual harassment, I think he hired Nathan because Blake was running to the press first (see that Daily Mail article in early August about him being a chaunivist) and he needed to protect himself and the company. But I just don't see a jury making a distinction between "retaliating" against SH and "retaliating" to protect himself. Her lawyers are going to get them to ask: Did JB launch any counterattack on her for whatever reason? I don't think the jury is going to believe her on the SH claims, but I think BL's lawyers are going to try their hardest to make the argument that retaliation is their focus, SH is subjective and so don't focus on that, etc.

I think Baldoni is going to have a hard time explaining why he was paying Wallace $90K to just keep track of socials and not affirmatively add commentary to the conversations when keeping track of socials is specifically work that his other 2 PR firms were getting paid $30K/month and $15K/month to do as per their written contracts.

Unless Wallace was promoting positive commentary about Justin. There is actually a fair amount he could be doing that wouldn’t involve Lively at all. Same for all the pr folks, positive stories about their clients is their business.

Agree that if Wayfarer/TAG/Wallace can show that they were just promoting positive stories about Justin and Wayfarer and staying neutral on Blake, they will beat the retaliation claims.

There are a few messages from the Jen Abel phone that indicate they did go after Blake though, including with Wallace's team, and that some of what they did was seeding negative stories online. There could be some explanations for those messages that are exculpating -- maybe they wanted to go after Blake but didn't because cooler head prevailed, or because they discovered they didn't need to. It's also possible that TAG or Wallace essentially lied to Wayfarer about what they were doing, that they said said they would see negative stories about Blake and then those popped up on their own without any effort, so TAG and Wallace claimed to have caused it (in order to justify their large fees).

One legal question I have is what if the facts show that Baldoni and Wayfarer absolutely wanted to go after Blake and hired TAG and Wallace specifically to spread negative content about her online, but then they didn't? Would Baldoni/Wayfarer still potentially be liable for trying to retaliate? Would just hiring these people and giving them the directive to trash Blake in the press be enough for a jury to find them guilty of retaliation? I truly have no idea.

The cause of action requires actual acts of retaliation. I thought about it, but didn’t actually do it isn’t enough.

I think the question would be if hiring someone itself counts as a retaliatory act. Hiring is easily distinguished from "thinking about" retaliation, so your straw man fails. That said, I don't know if you framed it as paying for a bad act that didn't occur if that would be sufficient or not (on the other hand, you might be able to frame it more favorably as paying to ensure negative stories came out; it might depend on the contract wording).

She is going to need to show the hiring was retaliation to her claims of sexual harassment and not due to her threats and efforts to freeze him out of the movie. He has a right to seek help when being defamed. And yes, he can still use her behavior as a defense even if he can’t collect damages on it as a cause of action.

He wasn't defamed.

You keep framing everything in the best possible way for Baldoni, and I understand it because I do the same with Lively. That's what lawyers do. But recognize that not everyone has drunk the Baldoni Kool Aid, and regular people may not be so eager to share your take on who is the good guy here. I will grant that Baldoni's got a shot though because of the old adage, someone famous said this I think, I can't quite remember who: "It's actually sad because it just shows you have people really want to hate on women."