Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liman is going to side with Lively because he gives her everything she wants, so don't be surprised.

This is a bad read of what's been going on in this case, and Baldoni supporters should continue to believe it at their peril. Baldoni's supporters are committing countless unforced errors and you guys continue to lap it up and fail to call them on it because you're trapped in an echo chamber.



A female plaintiff claiming sexual harassment and retaliation asks for a dep to be held at her counsel's firm because she can't get a straight answer from opposing counsel for four days re who will be attending and that it won't be mayhem, and opposing counsel's response is to mock her concerns and say they will just allow her security just to walk her into the building?

Shuster probably could have avoided this result had they filed a letter that said some of what they said here, but just phrased it in a way that showed they were serious. "We take Ms. Lively's concerns seriously and can have additional security available to walk her in and out. None of the attendees will be members of the press. We are not looking for a media circus." etc. Instead he mocked and grandstanded, and now they aren't hosting anymore. Absolutely unforced error.

I agree with you that Liman isn’t corrupt and they he did the right thing here. But I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture. The location doesn’t matter either way, and Baldonis side knows that. Freedman is just trolling Blake, pointing out she’s a Prima Donna and expects special treatment whenever she goes. He made his point. The issue isn’t a big deal.

Hoo boy do I disagree with you on this one. You're talking about the bigger picture like it's purely on the PR side -- does Lively look like a diva to Baldoni fans and will that continue to incite their rabid reactions in this case?

Whereas to me the real bigger picture is that Liman will be deciding very soon whether or not to grant discovery against the Liman Freedman firm itself, for participating in the smears, and this entire briefing just reinforced Gottlieb's themes that Freedman is a bizarro wildcard who does not follow normal rules of professional conduct for lawyers -- which reinforces the fact that as Gottlieb is arguing, Freedman himself may very well be involved in the smear. I bet that decision is coming early this week. You think it was good for Liman to be reading that Vin Diesel pleading while he's deciding that issue? I do not.

In fact, I think having that Vin Diesel pleading in his back pocket is exactly why Gottlieb had his people send the email insisting the dep would occur at Lively's law firm in the first place. It was a bit of a threat -- give in to us on the location and the attendees or we will send your crazy behavior as described in this pleading to Judge Liman. And Garofalo scoffed and provided zero reassurances, so Gottlieb filed the motion.

Go to your thread!! No one here cares about your obsession with Freedman!

Speak for yourself, I thought this was interesting.

-Not a lawyer

Thank you! One addition to what I said above is that the parties are supposed to report in by 5pm today their take on whether Liman can rule on the papers already submitted re the Liman Freedman subpoena issue. So if someone wants to submit additional briefings, that could slow Liman's ruling down.

Oh, I didn't realize that was this week. I think Lively will win (legitimately, for the most part). It's relevant because Freedman is named in her complaint as part of her ongoing defamation claim and he did not attempt to dismiss it. Communications with third parties like media and content creators won't be privileged or to the extent privileged they can produce a log. At the time I think I posted that Liman would narrow the scope of her requests a bit but now I think he will give almost everything because he's, uh, generous in accepting her arguments lately.

I think Liman might surprise us by ruling against her on this. First, because he's stuck with the way he treated the WF defamation claim, and its hard to argue that the evidence she's seeking is meaningfully going to be relevant at trial, and as he's also previously expressed disdain at bringing the attorneys too much into the case in chief. Further, it's a really bad precedent to open attorneys up to discovery for statements made during the course of doing their job and he also doesn't want to do something that is going to jeopardize reversal on appeal. The so called untraceable scheme remains pretty much untraceable. Discovery orders aren't appealable but this could rise to something that puts the entire case in jeopardy down the line. But a lot of his rulings have sucked, so I agree there is a reasonable probability that he could rule for her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did NAG get yet another decision wrong? Has she gotten anything right? (Team JBer here, if that matters.)

It’s not her prognostication that’s off, it’s a wonky judge.

PP I don't disagree that he's a wonky judge, but then she needs to start calibrating her analyses by assuming Liman is going to grant Lively whatever she wants. i.e. she shouldn't phrase her videos as "I think Liman is going to do this because of X, Y, Z" and more so say, "I think a judge would normally do this because of X, Y, Z, but because of the pattern that we've been seeing, Liman will do this in favor of Lively and then justify it by claiming A, B, C."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liman is going to side with Lively because he gives her everything she wants, so don't be surprised.

This is a bad read of what's been going on in this case, and Baldoni supporters should continue to believe it at their peril. Baldoni's supporters are committing countless unforced errors and you guys continue to lap it up and fail to call them on it because you're trapped in an echo chamber.



A female plaintiff claiming sexual harassment and retaliation asks for a dep to be held at her counsel's firm because she can't get a straight answer from opposing counsel for four days re who will be attending and that it won't be mayhem, and opposing counsel's response is to mock her concerns and say they will just allow her security just to walk her into the building?

Shuster probably could have avoided this result had they filed a letter that said some of what they said here, but just phrased it in a way that showed they were serious. "We take Ms. Lively's concerns seriously and can have additional security available to walk her in and out. None of the attendees will be members of the press. We are not looking for a media circus." etc. Instead he mocked and grandstanded, and now they aren't hosting anymore. Absolutely unforced error.

I agree with you that Liman isn’t corrupt and they he did the right thing here. But I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture. The location doesn’t matter either way, and Baldonis side knows that. Freedman is just trolling Blake, pointing out she’s a Prima Donna and expects special treatment whenever she goes. He made his point. The issue isn’t a big deal.

Hoo boy do I disagree with you on this one. You're talking about the bigger picture like it's purely on the PR side -- does Lively look like a diva to Baldoni fans and will that continue to incite their rabid reactions in this case?

Whereas to me the real bigger picture is that Liman will be deciding very soon whether or not to grant discovery against the Liman Freedman firm itself, for participating in the smears, and this entire briefing just reinforced Gottlieb's themes that Freedman is a bizarro wildcard who does not follow normal rules of professional conduct for lawyers -- which reinforces the fact that as Gottlieb is arguing, Freedman himself may very well be involved in the smear. I bet that decision is coming early this week. You think it was good for Liman to be reading that Vin Diesel pleading while he's deciding that issue? I do not.

In fact, I think having that Vin Diesel pleading in his back pocket is exactly why Gottlieb had his people send the email insisting the dep would occur at Lively's law firm in the first place. It was a bit of a threat -- give in to us on the location and the attendees or we will send your crazy behavior as described in this pleading to Judge Liman. And Garofalo scoffed and provided zero reassurances, so Gottlieb filed the motion.

Go to your thread!! No one here cares about your obsession with Freedman!

Speak for yourself, I thought this was interesting.

-Not a lawyer

Thank you! One addition to what I said above is that the parties are supposed to report in by 5pm today their take on whether Liman can rule on the papers already submitted re the Liman Freedman subpoena issue. So if someone wants to submit additional briefings, that could slow Liman's ruling down.

Oh, I didn't realize that was this week. I think Lively will win (legitimately, for the most part). It's relevant because Freedman is named in her complaint as part of her ongoing defamation claim and he did not attempt to dismiss it. Communications with third parties like media and content creators won't be privileged or to the extent privileged they can produce a log. At the time I think I posted that Liman would narrow the scope of her requests a bit but now I think he will give almost everything because he's, uh, generous in accepting her arguments lately.

I think Liman might surprise us by ruling against her on this. First, because he's stuck with the way he treated the WF defamation claim, and its hard to argue that the evidence she's seeking is meaningfully going to be relevant at trial, and as he's also previously expressed disdain at bringing the attorneys too much into the case in chief. Further, it's a really bad precedent to open attorneys up to discovery for statements made during the course of doing their job and he also doesn't want to do something that is going to jeopardize reversal on appeal. The so called untraceable scheme remains pretty much untraceable. Discovery orders aren't appealable but this could rise to something that puts the entire case in jeopardy down the line. But a lot of his rulings have sucked, so I agree there is a reasonable probability that he could rule for her.

He's going to rule for her. He's corrupt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Liman is going to side with Lively because he gives her everything she wants, so don't be surprised.

This is a bad read of what's been going on in this case, and Baldoni supporters should continue to believe it at their peril. Baldoni's supporters are committing countless unforced errors and you guys continue to lap it up and fail to call them on it because you're trapped in an echo chamber.



A female plaintiff claiming sexual harassment and retaliation asks for a dep to be held at her counsel's firm because she can't get a straight answer from opposing counsel for four days re who will be attending and that it won't be mayhem, and opposing counsel's response is to mock her concerns and say they will just allow her security just to walk her into the building?

Shuster probably could have avoided this result had they filed a letter that said some of what they said here, but just phrased it in a way that showed they were serious. "We take Ms. Lively's concerns seriously and can have additional security available to walk her in and out. None of the attendees will be members of the press. We are not looking for a media circus." etc. Instead he mocked and grandstanded, and now they aren't hosting anymore. Absolutely unforced error.

I agree with you that Liman isn’t corrupt and they he did the right thing here. But I don’t think you’re seeing the bigger picture. The location doesn’t matter either way, and Baldonis side knows that. Freedman is just trolling Blake, pointing out she’s a Prima Donna and expects special treatment whenever she goes. He made his point. The issue isn’t a big deal.

Hoo boy do I disagree with you on this one. You're talking about the bigger picture like it's purely on the PR side -- does Lively look like a diva to Baldoni fans and will that continue to incite their rabid reactions in this case?

Whereas to me the real bigger picture is that Liman will be deciding very soon whether or not to grant discovery against the Liman Freedman firm itself, for participating in the smears, and this entire briefing just reinforced Gottlieb's themes that Freedman is a bizarro wildcard who does not follow normal rules of professional conduct for lawyers -- which reinforces the fact that as Gottlieb is arguing, Freedman himself may very well be involved in the smear. I bet that decision is coming early this week. You think it was good for Liman to be reading that Vin Diesel pleading while he's deciding that issue? I do not.

In fact, I think having that Vin Diesel pleading in his back pocket is exactly why Gottlieb had his people send the email insisting the dep would occur at Lively's law firm in the first place. It was a bit of a threat -- give in to us on the location and the attendees or we will send your crazy behavior as described in this pleading to Judge Liman. And Garofalo scoffed and provided zero reassurances, so Gottlieb filed the motion.

Go to your thread!! No one here cares about your obsession with Freedman!

Speak for yourself, I thought this was interesting.

-Not a lawyer

Thank you! One addition to what I said above is that the parties are supposed to report in by 5pm today their take on whether Liman can rule on the papers already submitted re the Liman Freedman subpoena issue. So if someone wants to submit additional briefings, that could slow Liman's ruling down.

Oh, I didn't realize that was this week. I think Lively will win (legitimately, for the most part). It's relevant because Freedman is named in her complaint as part of her ongoing defamation claim and he did not attempt to dismiss it. Communications with third parties like media and content creators won't be privileged or to the extent privileged they can produce a log. At the time I think I posted that Liman would narrow the scope of her requests a bit but now I think he will give almost everything because he's, uh, generous in accepting her arguments lately.

I think Liman might surprise us by ruling against her on this. First, because he's stuck with the way he treated the WF defamation claim, and its hard to argue that the evidence she's seeking is meaningfully going to be relevant at trial, and as he's also previously expressed disdain at bringing the attorneys too much into the case in chief. Further, it's a really bad precedent to open attorneys up to discovery for statements made during the course of doing their job and he also doesn't want to do something that is going to jeopardize reversal on appeal. The so called untraceable scheme remains pretty much untraceable. Discovery orders aren't appealable but this could rise to something that puts the entire case in jeopardy down the line. But a lot of his rulings have sucked, so I agree there is a reasonable probability that he could rule for her.

I'm the PP who thinks she will win the motion. Your analysis is sound but it seems like the only two people who are consistently right are the steadfast Lively supporter and the snarky Baldoni supporter who says he gives her everything. Horseshoe theory.

[Anonymous]

Blake's law firm is seeking information related to content creators' Google accounts: https://www.reddit.com/r/ItEndsWithLawsuits/comments/1lzyewb/blake_livelys_lawfirm_confirmed_the_google/

I'm pro-JB but I got accused of being pro-BL for raising concerns that she might go after anonymous commenters on Insta and Reddit next. I'm not going to stop posting and don't want this to have a chilling effect on discourse, because I don't give into terrorists, but this is why I've genuinely been wondering if she can actually try to go after random online users. Can someone ask Jeff what his policy is on subpoenas? lol

[Anonymous]

Doug Liman was listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1508273-jeffrey-epsteins-little-black-book-redacted/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Doug Liman was listed in Jeffrey Epstein’s black book: https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1508273-jeffrey-epsteins-little-black-book-redacted/

I mean, Liman is a Trump appointee.

[Anonymous]

So are all the content creators going to be filing their motions to quash in their own jurisdictions? Or google's? Or the SDNY docket?

[Anonymous]

I ultimately want the content creators to win, but I do wonder if they were playing with fire and this was inevitable, if not here, then in another high-profile celeb case. I'm thinking about gossip blogs that have gotten away with saying way more harmful things than CCs, but even then, they've always couched what they've said as blind items.

[Anonymous]

The content creators aren't being sued for defamation though, this is just evidence gathering. I have no sympathy for Perez or Candace but some of these CC are very small and some are making videos from their bedrooms. I would really like to know how they were chosen. I know they asked Wayfarer for a list of content creators. If they are trying to get evidence from those who were named and have some actual link to the Wayfarer or Wallace parties, that is one thing, but if they are just going to subpoena CC because they were negative about BL, I am not saying that is illegal, but it really is disgusting.

[Anonymous]

Whose choice is it to videotape or not a deposition? I would think BL would NOT want video recording that ultimately could be seen in court- printed word only maybe better protects her?

What are odds public ever sees if video?

[Anonymous]

Kesha was depo on video when she accused Dr. Luke of rape so it's pretty standard. I've seen depo videos od Trump. I don’t think she can easily worm out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The content creators aren't being sued for defamation though, this is just evidence gathering. I have no sympathy for Perez or Candace but some of these CC are very small and some are making videos from their bedrooms. I would really like to know how they were chosen. I know they asked Wayfarer for a list of content creators. If they are trying to get evidence from those who were named and have some actual link to the Wayfarer or Wallace parties, that is one thing, but if they are just going to subpoena CC because they were negative about BL, I am not saying that is illegal, but it really is disgusting.

I do feel for the smaller CCs who just started talking about this case because it was high profile and now may worry they need a lawyer or may be burdened by discovery in a way that could be really difficult for a regular person. Like you I have zero empathy for Candace Owens or Perez Hilton. There's also a creator named Without a Crystal Ball on Reddit and I wouldn't care if she was subpoenaed -- she's crazy unreliable and just spews gossip. I'm okay with there be consequences for that behavior.

I am taking a wait and see approach on this though. The CCs may genuinely be very central to the case. BL wants to show that Baldoni et al set out to push a negative narrative about Blake online, in order to discredit her, both in retaliation for her complaints about Baldoni's/Heath's behavior and also so that people wouldn't believe her if she went public with her complaints. Baldoni's argument thus far has been that he and his side didn't need to push a negative narrative about Blake because people organically and spontaneously started talking negatively about her based on her own actions.

Right now it is honestly impossible to know which of those two narrative is true. There is certainly plenty of evidence that Lively committed a number of own goals on the PR front, most notably with her tone-deaf comments on DV and her efforts to promote her booze and haircare products during the IEWU promotion. Certainly some portion of the negative commentary around her is organic.

However, you cannot ignore the texts where Baldoni quite clearly seems to be asking Abel and Nathan to use PR to create a negative narrative about Blake online. Or the texts where Abel and Nathan seem to take credit for the negative narrative, or credit the work by Wallace and his team. This is pretty compelling evidence that at least some of the negative commentary online was driven by Abel/TAG/Wallace at Baldoni's request, which supports the retaliation claim.

Given those competing narratives, talking to CCs about their content and looking to see when the negative commentary about Blake started and what spurred it is of central importance to BOTH cases. It doesn't necessarily even benefit BL. Perhaps investigating this will reveal that the CCs were responding only to BL's own behavior, which would help prove Baldoni's case that the negative narrative was organic.

But it's relevant. Whether it supports BL's case or Baldoni's. So while I do feel for the smaller creators who never anticipated dealing with something like this, it's just so central to the case that I'd like to see where it goes before I start yelling that it's unfair. This is at the heart of the case.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Whose choice is it to videotape or not a deposition? I would think BL would NOT want video recording that ultimately could be seen in court- printed word only maybe better protects her?

What are odds public ever sees if video?

It is the choice of the party taking the deposition. It would never become public unless used at trial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The content creators aren't being sued for defamation though, this is just evidence gathering. I have no sympathy for Perez or Candace but some of these CC are very small and some are making videos from their bedrooms. I would really like to know how they were chosen. I know they asked Wayfarer for a list of content creators. If they are trying to get evidence from those who were named and have some actual link to the Wayfarer or Wallace parties, that is one thing, but if they are just going to subpoena CC because they were negative about BL, I am not saying that is illegal, but it really is disgusting.

I do feel for the smaller CCs who just started talking about this case because it was high profile and now may worry they need a lawyer or may be burdened by discovery in a way that could be really difficult for a regular person. Like you I have zero empathy for Candace Owens or Perez Hilton. There's also a creator named Without a Crystal Ball on Reddit and I wouldn't care if she was subpoenaed -- she's crazy unreliable and just spews gossip. I'm okay with there be consequences for that behavior.

I am taking a wait and see approach on this though. The CCs may genuinely be very central to the case. BL wants to show that Baldoni et al set out to push a negative narrative about Blake online, in order to discredit her, both in retaliation for her complaints about Baldoni's/Heath's behavior and also so that people wouldn't believe her if she went public with her complaints. Baldoni's argument thus far has been that he and his side didn't need to push a negative narrative about Blake because people organically and spontaneously started talking negatively about her based on her own actions.

Right now it is honestly impossible to know which of those two narrative is true. There is certainly plenty of evidence that Lively committed a number of own goals on the PR front, most notably with her tone-deaf comments on DV and her efforts to promote her booze and haircare products during the IEWU promotion. Certainly some portion of the negative commentary around her is organic.

However, you cannot ignore the texts where Baldoni quite clearly seems to be asking Abel and Nathan to use PR to create a negative narrative about Blake online. Or the texts where Abel and Nathan seem to take credit for the negative narrative, or credit the work by Wallace and his team. This is pretty compelling evidence that at least some of the negative commentary online was driven by Abel/TAG/Wallace at Baldoni's request, which supports the retaliation claim.

Given those competing narratives, talking to CCs about their content and looking to see when the negative commentary about Blake started and what spurred it is of central importance to BOTH cases. It doesn't necessarily even benefit BL. Perhaps investigating this will reveal that the CCs were responding only to BL's own behavior, which would help prove Baldoni's case that the negative narrative was organic.

But it's relevant. Whether it supports BL's case or Baldoni's. So while I do feel for the smaller creators who never anticipated dealing with something like this, it's just so central to the case that I'd like to see where it goes before I start yelling that it's unfair. This is at the heart of the case.

I
One or two ambiguous texts don’t justify this degree of discovery. Blake is very very lucky to have gotten Liman but the creators can oppose the subpoenas in their home jurisdictions. Make Blake spend the money to defend them everywhere.