Why is Blake Lively so overrated?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

I hate both of them, but I genuinely believe they love each other and Ryan's gonna support her no matter what. I think the video disproves at least one of her claims, but we already have people saying, "See, look how uncomfortable she looks!" and it would be very easy for Ryan to believe that.

Whether she looks uncomfortable or not, the video makes clear her description of that scene is not how it actually occurred.

Right, and I don't believe her, I'm not saying Justin has a weak case. I was replying to the topic of Ryan and my broader point is it's going to be easy for Ryan to continue being on her side.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

+1 even if Baldoni is not found to have harassed Lively, the involves him talking on set about his sex life, his wife's birth experience, his porn addiction, and a situation when Baldoni passed off a woman he was dating to Jamey Heath. He may or may not have harassed Lively, I don't know, but there is a strong ick factor coming off that guy.

I also think it's fascinating that Baldoni has built his entire public persona around being a male feminist who is sensitive to women and their experience, but his his defense and especially his defense lawyer are sort of the opposite of that. I don't see how he reconciles it.

I think his career is toast and I wouldn't be surprised if his marriage is on the rocks.

I don’t really know much about Baldoni’s persona, but I think he is going to come out of this a lot richer and with his professional image redeemed. Blake will only work again if his husband finances the fil and I think her friendship with Taylor is likely gone forever.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

+1 even if Baldoni is not found to have harassed Lively, the involves him talking on set about his sex life, his wife's birth experience, his porn addiction, and a situation when Baldoni passed off a woman he was dating to Jamey Heath. He may or may not have harassed Lively, I don't know, but there is a strong ick factor coming off that guy.

I also think it's fascinating that Baldoni has built his entire public persona around being a male feminist who is sensitive to women and their experience, but his his defense and especially his defense lawyer are sort of the opposite of that. I don't see how he reconciles it.

I think his career is toast and I wouldn't be surprised if his marriage is on the rocks.

I don’t really know much about Baldoni’s persona, but I think he is going to come out of this a lot richer and with his professional image redeemed. Blake will only work again if his husband finances the fil and I think her friendship with Taylor is likely gone forever.

Yes, Taylor Swift cuts people off easily, like Karli Kloss, if bad for her image.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

I hate both of them, but I genuinely believe they love each other and Ryan's gonna support her no matter what. I think the video disproves at least one of her claims, but we already have people saying, "See, look how uncomfortable she looks!" and it would be very easy for Ryan to believe that.

Whether she looks uncomfortable or not, the video makes clear her description of that scene is not how it actually occurred.

Right, and I don't believe her, I'm not saying Justin has a weak case. I was replying to the topic of Ryan and my broader point is it's going to be easy for Ryan to continue being on her side.

I gotta disagree, he did a lot of embarrassing things presumably based on her allegations being true. Now he either lots like part of an unjust plot to destroy another director, or a fool.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Any chance a judge approves the gag order? Can anyone here with legal insight provide some clarity?

The are asking for both a protective order (that's what people are referring to as the "gag order") and a hearing to discuss appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward. I can't find a copy of their motion online though so I'm not sure exactly what the are asking the protective order to cover.

They'll get the hearing, that's an easy one and could be rolled into other preliminary hearings the judge might schedule as well. I would expect the judge at the hearing to lecture attorneys on both sides regarding communications to the press, not just Baldoni's lawyers.

I do think there are some things that Baldoni's lawyer has either released or is proposing releasing that the court would consider issuing a PO against. For instance I think it's highly likely the judge could issue a PO preventing Baldoni from releasing footage from the birth scene, where even if you go by Baldoni's complaint, the most Lively was wearing was a pair of underwear briefs on the bottom, and her legs were up in stirrups. That would be an easy one. I am less sure about how the judge would treat other requests for nondisclosure, of stuff like texts/emails between the parties. A lot of it is already in the complaints, I don't know how much else there even is. The judge will have to weight the potentially prejudicial or damaging impact of any potential disclosure against Baldoni's right to defend himself in the court of public opinion. And I don't know if Lively is asking for a blanket PO (unlikely to get) or something more targeted, which is more likely to be successful.

I know the press has a lot of protections, but do you think his case against the New York Times has legitimacy? They left out some key texts. e.g. Two people on his team said there was so much ammo against Justin when it came to the sexual harassment claims, but they left out a part where they both said that those accusations weren't true.

I would be pretty surprised if his NYT suit makes it past summary judgment. The only reservation I have is that recent big settlement by ABC news with Trump, which also surprised me but in retrospect I think they did it to avoid litigation that could go to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn important precedent (Sullivan). So that gives me pause and makes me wonder if we are just in a different era. However, that was Trump as plaintiff and the odds of it going to the SC are high and he appointed half the justices. I don't think Baldoni v. NYT is going that route.

In order to prove defamation, he has to prove "actual malice." He has to prove that they published something that was intentionally misleading with the specific goal of hurting Baldoni. I think this will be virtually impossible for a bunch of reasons -- the piece actually has multiple bylines and it would be hard to prove they collaborated to take Baldoni down, the NYT's fact checking process is pretty rigorous and they will have documentation of everything, and his argument is basically that they failed to provide full context to the allegation but they will simply argue that they reported on Lively's complaint and the allegations they had at the time, and then later reported on Baldoni's complaint and his counter-allegations. News orgs are not required to hold stories until every bit of information is available before reporting.

The NYT has also said they plan to vigorously defend in the case, so that weighs against a potential settlement. I don't think Baldoni has much of a case on the law here. I do wonder what a decisive loss in the NYT case does with regards to his battle against Lively and Reynolds. It won't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt.

Am I understanding correctly that you’re saying if the texts provided to them were edited/incomplete, then they could be shielded from liability by relying on those texts? In other words, they didn’t need to investigate whether those texts were complete or edited before reporting their story? If so, that’s kind of unfortunate because they essentially amplified edited/incomplete texts to present a completely different story than the unedited/complete texts would show! I feel like the due diligence standards should be higher for New York Times journalists…

If they verified the texts were real, no, I don't think they are legally required to ensure they have every single text in a text chain.

Also, even though some of the meaning of specific texts was changed when taken out of context, the broad outlines of what they reported was true -- Baldoni hired a PR firm to plant stories about Lively online in order to undermine her reputation in case she came forward with details about the alleged harassment on set. The context that has since been provided doesn't challenge any of that. It just puts some of the comments in the texts into gentler framing.

I think it's going to be near impossible for Baldoni to prove the NYT intentionally mislead the public with this story because he did actually do what he is accused of doing in terms of the PR story -- he hired the firm specifically to turn public sentiment against Lively. Sure, he'll argue he did that because the harassment allegations are false and he was getting ahead of that story. That's fine and the NYT has reported on his argument as well. But those texts were not made up and the story itself is still accurate even if additional context has come to light.

He basically has no case here.

Failing to provide context isn't libel against anyone.

Failing to provide context against a public figure will be laughed out of court as libel.

PP here and this is a much more succinct version, yes. I don't think he'd have a case even if he were a public person, though, because they didn't print anything untrue.

Not sure he even wants to win. He just wanted to put it out there that it was crap reporting, which it was.

Yes but potentially short sighted because it will be thrown out on summary judgment. I also think his legal case against Lively is pretty weak (referring to his complaint, not his defense of her complaint, which is much stronger) as it relies on her "defaming" him which I don't see. The stuff he's bringing against Reynolds, Sony, and Marvel is even weaker.

I get he's trying to flood the zone with his version of events and that has given him a temporary boost, but what happens if he loses all these cases and the story is that her case is proceeding?

Another lawyer here, and disagree. Media is very worried about what this Supreme Court will do to Sullivan. I think he gets a relatively quick settlement from NY Times. They have no emotional investment in the litigation.

was going to say that. Perfect vehicle to overturn Sullivan lol.

No way, sorry. Baldoni has no case here. The case won't make it past summary judgement -- the reporting was accurate but incomplete AND he's a public person so he has to prove actual malice, for which he has no evidence at all. Barring some surprise smoking gun, like a text from the NYT to Lively saying "don't worry, we'll bury this guy" (which for sure does not exist), his case is dead in the water.

I don’t believe you are actually a lawyer. The reporting was not accurate and the simplest of investigation would have revealed that. Given this, it just makes sense for The NY Times to settle. Further focus on how much they got wrong in the article and how little they did to verify Blake’s account, or to even make sure that the texts weren’t edited in a deceptive manner will cause further reputational harm even if he doesn’t prevail. They could likely settle the case for less than it would cost to try, and have most if not all of it covered by insurance. It will settle because they have nothing to gain by taking it to trial.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

+1 even if Baldoni is not found to have harassed Lively, the involves him talking on set about his sex life, his wife's birth experience, his porn addiction, and a situation when Baldoni passed off a woman he was dating to Jamey Heath. He may or may not have harassed Lively, I don't know, but there is a strong ick factor coming off that guy.

I also think it's fascinating that Baldoni has built his entire public persona around being a male feminist who is sensitive to women and their experience, but his his defense and especially his defense lawyer are sort of the opposite of that. I don't see how he reconciles it.

I think his career is toast and I wouldn't be surprised if his marriage is on the rocks.

I don’t really know much about Baldoni’s persona, but I think he is going to come out of this a lot richer and with his professional image redeemed. Blake will only work again if his husband finances the fil and I think her friendship with Taylor is likely gone forever.

Yes, Taylor Swift cuts people off easily, like Karli Kloss, if bad for her image.

She has no choice but to cut her off. She’s got the left against her accusing her of “white woman tears”—a claim vindicated by her supporters resorting to arguments that she’s uncomfortable with her costar touching her in a romantic scene. Like I’m sorry, accountants don’t have to worry about being touched by coworkers or bosses, she should not have continued acting if being touched by actors is something that makes her uncomfortable (Baldoni completely snapped out of the character when they said cut). On the right she’s being attacked gleefully because they want to completely destroy what’s left of BLM and metoo.

[Anonymous]

After watching the film of the dance scene again, there are two things that stand out. Justin Baldoni told that he was going to edit out the sound and no one would know what they were saying. So she relied on the sound being out in her complaint.

I think there was something uncomfortable about Justin Baldoni directing himself in a love/ romantic scene. At one point he is dancing with Blake, and says, "OK, let's see this" ( pointing to her neck and then kissing it or pretending to kiss it).

I think he was just trying to get the shot, but the directing of the scene by Justin was on the fly and not planned. It seemed more intimate than Blake anticipated when he touched her neck. I personally don't think it was all that "intimate" compared to most love scenes, but I do wonder if she usually clears this type of stuff with Reynolds and that's why the spontaneity was offputting.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

Since it’s clear that Blake’s lawsuit is premised on lies, no. I do feel bad that she had to deal with her husband losing control of his movie to someone with a narcissistic personality disorder. Sitting in the basement on premiere night likely wasn’t too much fun.

Well maybe she will divorce the unemployed loser.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I really doubt Baldoni's case is going to overturn Sullivan. The article was couched in the usual caveats that "according to Lively's complaint..." and it's true that there's a complaint and the accurately reported what was in her complaint, though her complaint may have been misleading or lacking in key context. The court would essentially have to rule that in order to report on a matter of public interest such as a lawsuit between celebrities, that a paper would have to do due diligence into whether the allegations are true before they can report on them. That's not feasible, IMO.

Where Baldoni could have a case if there's an instance where the NYT wrote his PR people said XYZ in a text, and then omitted the fact that the text immediately following said "just kidding!" That could be construed as reckless disregard for the truth under Sullivan. He tried to get across something like that by saying there were upside down smiley faces meant to convey sarcasm in certain texts (I am not sure this is my understanding or the general understanding of those emojis) that were presented as straightforward texts. I can't remember if that was something that Lively did in the complaint and NYT reported that or if NYT wrote that after reviewing the texts. That's still a bit of a stretch, but he could have something there.

The NYTimes in fact did exactly that. Further, the NY Times article explicitly claims to be based not only on her complaint, but a review of thousands of texts and interviews with Lively. I think his case is stronger than you suggest. And there is no reason for the Times to take this to trial or even summary judgment, makes more sense to settle to avoid litigation costs and litigation risk, particularly damage to the Sullivan holding on appeal.

Do you have the example handy? The only one I remember is the claim that the upside down smiling emoji meant sarcasm and therefore NYT should have known those texts meant the opposite of what they said (I would not necessarily know that and would have assumed it meant more like "we're effed" but I guess that's a factual issue that could be litigated).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

+1 even if Baldoni is not found to have harassed Lively, the involves him talking on set about his sex life, his wife's birth experience, his porn addiction, and a situation when Baldoni passed off a woman he was dating to Jamey Heath. He may or may not have harassed Lively, I don't know, but there is a strong ick factor coming off that guy.

I also think it's fascinating that Baldoni has built his entire public persona around being a male feminist who is sensitive to women and their experience, but his his defense and especially his defense lawyer are sort of the opposite of that. I don't see how he reconciles it.

I think his career is toast and I wouldn't be surprised if his marriage is on the rocks.

He had a podcast where he already was talking about all this stuff. I think his wife is aware he’s a sharer.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Any chance a judge approves the gag order? Can anyone here with legal insight provide some clarity?

The are asking for both a protective order (that's what people are referring to as the "gag order") and a hearing to discuss appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward. I can't find a copy of their motion online though so I'm not sure exactly what the are asking the protective order to cover.

They'll get the hearing, that's an easy one and could be rolled into other preliminary hearings the judge might schedule as well. I would expect the judge at the hearing to lecture attorneys on both sides regarding communications to the press, not just Baldoni's lawyers.

I do think there are some things that Baldoni's lawyer has either released or is proposing releasing that the court would consider issuing a PO against. For instance I think it's highly likely the judge could issue a PO preventing Baldoni from releasing footage from the birth scene, where even if you go by Baldoni's complaint, the most Lively was wearing was a pair of underwear briefs on the bottom, and her legs were up in stirrups. That would be an easy one. I am less sure about how the judge would treat other requests for nondisclosure, of stuff like texts/emails between the parties. A lot of it is already in the complaints, I don't know how much else there even is. The judge will have to weight the potentially prejudicial or damaging impact of any potential disclosure against Baldoni's right to defend himself in the court of public opinion. And I don't know if Lively is asking for a blanket PO (unlikely to get) or something more targeted, which is more likely to be successful.

I know the press has a lot of protections, but do you think his case against the New York Times has legitimacy? They left out some key texts. e.g. Two people on his team said there was so much ammo against Justin when it came to the sexual harassment claims, but they left out a part where they both said that those accusations weren't true.

I would be pretty surprised if his NYT suit makes it past summary judgment. The only reservation I have is that recent big settlement by ABC news with Trump, which also surprised me but in retrospect I think they did it to avoid litigation that could go to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn important precedent (Sullivan). So that gives me pause and makes me wonder if we are just in a different era. However, that was Trump as plaintiff and the odds of it going to the SC are high and he appointed half the justices. I don't think Baldoni v. NYT is going that route.

In order to prove defamation, he has to prove "actual malice." He has to prove that they published something that was intentionally misleading with the specific goal of hurting Baldoni. I think this will be virtually impossible for a bunch of reasons -- the piece actually has multiple bylines and it would be hard to prove they collaborated to take Baldoni down, the NYT's fact checking process is pretty rigorous and they will have documentation of everything, and his argument is basically that they failed to provide full context to the allegation but they will simply argue that they reported on Lively's complaint and the allegations they had at the time, and then later reported on Baldoni's complaint and his counter-allegations. News orgs are not required to hold stories until every bit of information is available before reporting.

The NYT has also said they plan to vigorously defend in the case, so that weighs against a potential settlement. I don't think Baldoni has much of a case on the law here. I do wonder what a decisive loss in the NYT case does with regards to his battle against Lively and Reynolds. It won't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt.

Am I understanding correctly that you’re saying if the texts provided to them were edited/incomplete, then they could be shielded from liability by relying on those texts? In other words, they didn’t need to investigate whether those texts were complete or edited before reporting their story? If so, that’s kind of unfortunate because they essentially amplified edited/incomplete texts to present a completely different story than the unedited/complete texts would show! I feel like the due diligence standards should be higher for New York Times journalists…

If they verified the texts were real, no, I don't think they are legally required to ensure they have every single text in a text chain.

Also, even though some of the meaning of specific texts was changed when taken out of context, the broad outlines of what they reported was true -- Baldoni hired a PR firm to plant stories about Lively online in order to undermine her reputation in case she came forward with details about the alleged harassment on set. The context that has since been provided doesn't challenge any of that. It just puts some of the comments in the texts into gentler framing.

I think it's going to be near impossible for Baldoni to prove the NYT intentionally mislead the public with this story because he did actually do what he is accused of doing in terms of the PR story -- he hired the firm specifically to turn public sentiment against Lively. Sure, he'll argue he did that because the harassment allegations are false and he was getting ahead of that story. That's fine and the NYT has reported on his argument as well. But those texts were not made up and the story itself is still accurate even if additional context has come to light.

He basically has no case here.

Failing to provide context isn't libel against anyone.

Failing to provide context against a public figure will be laughed out of court as libel.

PP here and this is a much more succinct version, yes. I don't think he'd have a case even if he were a public person, though, because they didn't print anything untrue.

I think that is not enitekh correct, they altered one of the texts to take out emojis that indicated it was satire.

Meant to say they altered at least one of the texts in a way that changed its meaning, that is different than just failing to print entire text chain.

I have never thought of the upside down smiley face as meaning I didn't mean anything I just said or satire. I googled online for descriptions of it (from a time pre this saga) and it seems that there are about 100 different intended meanings of the emoji. Many say they use it to indicate resignation or whatever or dry humour etc. I am not sure one can assume the intention at the time the emoji was sent was that it means the text that was sent was satire.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I really doubt Baldoni's case is going to overturn Sullivan. The article was couched in the usual caveats that "according to Lively's complaint..." and it's true that there's a complaint and the accurately reported what was in her complaint, though her complaint may have been misleading or lacking in key context. The court would essentially have to rule that in order to report on a matter of public interest such as a lawsuit between celebrities, that a paper would have to do due diligence into whether the allegations are true before they can report on them. That's not feasible, IMO.

Where Baldoni could have a case if there's an instance where the NYT wrote his PR people said XYZ in a text, and then omitted the fact that the text immediately following said "just kidding!" That could be construed as reckless disregard for the truth under Sullivan. He tried to get across something like that by saying there were upside down smiley faces meant to convey sarcasm in certain texts (I am not sure this is my understanding or the general understanding of those emojis) that were presented as straightforward texts. I can't remember if that was something that Lively did in the complaint and NYT reported that or if NYT wrote that after reviewing the texts. That's still a bit of a stretch, but he could have something there.

The NYTimes in fact did exactly that. Further, the NY Times article explicitly claims to be based not only on her complaint, but a review of thousands of texts and interviews with Lively. I think his case is stronger than you suggest. And there is no reason for the Times to take this to trial or even summary judgment, makes more sense to settle to avoid litigation costs and litigation risk, particularly damage to the Sullivan holding on appeal.

Do you have the example handy? The only one I remember is the claim that the upside down smiling emoji meant sarcasm and therefore NYT should have known those texts meant the opposite of what they said (I would not necessarily know that and would have assumed it meant more like "we're effed" but I guess that's a factual issue that could be litigated).

That one I was thinking of, but I’d have to go back to the complaint for more.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Any chance a judge approves the gag order? Can anyone here with legal insight provide some clarity?

The are asking for both a protective order (that's what people are referring to as the "gag order") and a hearing to discuss appropriate conduct of counsel moving forward. I can't find a copy of their motion online though so I'm not sure exactly what the are asking the protective order to cover.

They'll get the hearing, that's an easy one and could be rolled into other preliminary hearings the judge might schedule as well. I would expect the judge at the hearing to lecture attorneys on both sides regarding communications to the press, not just Baldoni's lawyers.

I do think there are some things that Baldoni's lawyer has either released or is proposing releasing that the court would consider issuing a PO against. For instance I think it's highly likely the judge could issue a PO preventing Baldoni from releasing footage from the birth scene, where even if you go by Baldoni's complaint, the most Lively was wearing was a pair of underwear briefs on the bottom, and her legs were up in stirrups. That would be an easy one. I am less sure about how the judge would treat other requests for nondisclosure, of stuff like texts/emails between the parties. A lot of it is already in the complaints, I don't know how much else there even is. The judge will have to weight the potentially prejudicial or damaging impact of any potential disclosure against Baldoni's right to defend himself in the court of public opinion. And I don't know if Lively is asking for a blanket PO (unlikely to get) or something more targeted, which is more likely to be successful.

I know the press has a lot of protections, but do you think his case against the New York Times has legitimacy? They left out some key texts. e.g. Two people on his team said there was so much ammo against Justin when it came to the sexual harassment claims, but they left out a part where they both said that those accusations weren't true.

I would be pretty surprised if his NYT suit makes it past summary judgment. The only reservation I have is that recent big settlement by ABC news with Trump, which also surprised me but in retrospect I think they did it to avoid litigation that could go to the Supreme Court and potentially overturn important precedent (Sullivan). So that gives me pause and makes me wonder if we are just in a different era. However, that was Trump as plaintiff and the odds of it going to the SC are high and he appointed half the justices. I don't think Baldoni v. NYT is going that route.

In order to prove defamation, he has to prove "actual malice." He has to prove that they published something that was intentionally misleading with the specific goal of hurting Baldoni. I think this will be virtually impossible for a bunch of reasons -- the piece actually has multiple bylines and it would be hard to prove they collaborated to take Baldoni down, the NYT's fact checking process is pretty rigorous and they will have documentation of everything, and his argument is basically that they failed to provide full context to the allegation but they will simply argue that they reported on Lively's complaint and the allegations they had at the time, and then later reported on Baldoni's complaint and his counter-allegations. News orgs are not required to hold stories until every bit of information is available before reporting.

The NYT has also said they plan to vigorously defend in the case, so that weighs against a potential settlement. I don't think Baldoni has much of a case on the law here. I do wonder what a decisive loss in the NYT case does with regards to his battle against Lively and Reynolds. It won't help, but I don't know how much it will hurt.

Am I understanding correctly that you’re saying if the texts provided to them were edited/incomplete, then they could be shielded from liability by relying on those texts? In other words, they didn’t need to investigate whether those texts were complete or edited before reporting their story? If so, that’s kind of unfortunate because they essentially amplified edited/incomplete texts to present a completely different story than the unedited/complete texts would show! I feel like the due diligence standards should be higher for New York Times journalists…

If they verified the texts were real, no, I don't think they are legally required to ensure they have every single text in a text chain.

Also, even though some of the meaning of specific texts was changed when taken out of context, the broad outlines of what they reported was true -- Baldoni hired a PR firm to plant stories about Lively online in order to undermine her reputation in case she came forward with details about the alleged harassment on set. The context that has since been provided doesn't challenge any of that. It just puts some of the comments in the texts into gentler framing.

I think it's going to be near impossible for Baldoni to prove the NYT intentionally mislead the public with this story because he did actually do what he is accused of doing in terms of the PR story -- he hired the firm specifically to turn public sentiment against Lively. Sure, he'll argue he did that because the harassment allegations are false and he was getting ahead of that story. That's fine and the NYT has reported on his argument as well. But those texts were not made up and the story itself is still accurate even if additional context has come to light.

He basically has no case here.

Failing to provide context isn't libel against anyone.

Failing to provide context against a public figure will be laughed out of court as libel.

PP here and this is a much more succinct version, yes. I don't think he'd have a case even if he were a public person, though, because they didn't print anything untrue.

I think that is not enitekh correct, they altered one of the texts to take out emojis that indicated it was satire.

Meant to say they altered at least one of the texts in a way that changed its meaning, that is different than just failing to print entire text chain.

I have never thought of the upside down smiley face as meaning I didn't mean anything I just said or satire. I googled online for descriptions of it (from a time pre this saga) and it seems that there are about 100 different intended meanings of the emoji. Many say they use it to indicate resignation or whatever or dry humour etc. I am not sure one can assume the intention at the time the emoji was sent was that it means the text that was sent was satire.

If the reporter was unsure what it meant, perhaps she should have asked the person who texted it. You know, practice journalism.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I doubt Baldoni much cares whether he actually wins his lawsuits; he's just trying to get his version of events out in the open which it seems he is accomplishing. His career and livelihood is on the line in a way that Blake Lively's isn't. She'll be fine either way (even if she never gets another film role she's still married to a billionaire, besties with another billionaire, and has other ventures). He might never get work again if he didn't fight back.

I wonder if Blake’s marriage will be fine. I think it possible that much of what apppears to be ginned up in her complaint was likely present by her to Ryan as fact.

Didn’t you already try to take a poll on this? Stop obsessing.

We have Blake supporters literally posting the same thing dozens of times, we can certainly discuss this more than once. Someone said Blake would be fine. Maybe not so fine if her marriage collapses because of this. If she lied to Ryan about sexual harassment, might explain her irrational attachment to what is a clearly doomed lawsuit.

Aren't you worried about Baldonis marriage? Who wants to be married to a sexual harasser. Nobody ever talks about his poor wife.

Since it’s clear that Blake’s lawsuit is premised on lies, no. I do feel bad that she had to deal with her husband losing control of his movie to someone with a narcissistic personality disorder. Sitting in the basement on premiere night likely wasn’t too much fun.

Well maybe she will divorce the unemployed loser.

Why would she? Looks like he’s about to come in to a lot of money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:After watching the film of the dance scene again, there are two things that stand out. Justin Baldoni told that he was going to edit out the sound and no one would know what they were saying. So she relied on the sound being out in her complaint.

I think there was something uncomfortable about Justin Baldoni directing himself in a love/ romantic scene. At one point he is dancing with Blake, and says, "OK, let's see this" ( pointing to her neck and then kissing it or pretending to kiss it).

I think he was just trying to get the shot, but the directing of the scene by Justin was on the fly and not planned. It seemed more intimate than Blake anticipated when he touched her neck. I personally don't think it was all that "intimate" compared to most love scenes, but I do wonder if she usually clears this type of stuff with Reynolds and that's why the spontaneity was offputting.[/quote

From reading the perspective of a few people in the film industry, this was likely B roll with the only real direction being to get some clips of slow dancing in a bar. That there was likely no choreography or IC as it was just to get some slow dance scenes and most of the direction was to the background actors to get the right vibe for the shots. Seems Blake didn't really want it to be intimate and Justin did. Since it was likely lets get a B roll between filming scenes, they probably didn't talk about it much as to what they would do as its usually improvised. These clips were also filmed in May before the strike and the letter etc.