Why is Blake Lively so overrated?

[Anonymous]

So Blake’s team now wants a gag order on Justin’s team. Blake is the one who published a confidential complaint, leaked it to the New York Times, agreed to have them publish the full complaint with no pay wall in a very easily downloadable PDF…..

Make it make sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's two examples where media companies settled defamation cases in the plaintiff's favor. The first is the Fox-Dominion case in which Fox Trump supporters to claim that Dominion voting machines were rigged for Biden. Another was the Rolling Stone-UVA case where Rolling Stone published false allegations of a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. I can see similarities between the second case, and this one.

very VERY different cases. Not the least of which, the latter did not involve public figures.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Here's two examples where media companies settled defamation cases in the plaintiff's favor. The first is the Fox-Dominion case in which Fox Trump supporters to claim that Dominion voting machines were rigged for Biden. Another was the Rolling Stone-UVA case where Rolling Stone published false allegations of a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. I can see similarities between the second case, and this one.

This is not even close to UVA. They were private citizens and that case was completely fabricated. This is reporting on what a celeb said about another celeb in a legal complaint.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's two examples where media companies settled defamation cases in the plaintiff's favor. The first is the Fox-Dominion case in which Fox Trump supporters to claim that Dominion voting machines were rigged for Biden. Another was the Rolling Stone-UVA case where Rolling Stone published false allegations of a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. I can see similarities between the second case, and this one.

Typed too fast, where Fox allowed Trump supporters. . .

With the UVA case, they just based it off the girl’s story, right? I don’t recall if they presented it like it was true or presented it as she claimed this and that. But the problem was that they didn’t try to corroborate it and just took it at face value. Is that right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's two examples where media companies settled defamation cases in the plaintiff's favor. The first is the Fox-Dominion case in which Fox Trump supporters to claim that Dominion voting machines were rigged for Biden. Another was the Rolling Stone-UVA case where Rolling Stone published false allegations of a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. I can see similarities between the second case, and this one.

This is not even close to UVA. They were private citizens and that case was completely fabricated. This is reporting on what a celeb said about another celeb in a legal complaint.

And also fabricated.

[Anonymous]

I think the most problematic part of the case for the NY Times is the way they manipulated the texts to change their meaning and relied only on conversations with Blake.

[Anonymous]

So she says the video confirms her claims and then wants an immediate gag order on the lawyer, citing among other things that his leaks. This plays so poorly to the public (and yes she cares because she wants people to buy her stuff).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So she says the video confirms her claims and then wants an immediate gag order on the lawyer, citing among other things that his leaks. This plays so poorly to the public (and yes she cares because she wants people to buy her stuff).

It's just damage control. She is getting skewered everywhere.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the most problematic part of the case for the NY Times is the way they manipulated the texts to change their meaning and relied only on conversations with Blake.

What text(s) were manipulated? They didn't invent those PR texts out of thin air.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's two examples where media companies settled defamation cases in the plaintiff's favor. The first is the Fox-Dominion case in which Fox Trump supporters to claim that Dominion voting machines were rigged for Biden. Another was the Rolling Stone-UVA case where Rolling Stone published false allegations of a gang rape at a UVA fraternity. I can see similarities between the second case, and this one.

Typed too fast, where Fox allowed Trump supporters. . .

With the UVA case, they just based it off the girl’s story, right? I don’t recall if they presented it like it was true or presented it as she claimed this and that. But the problem was that they didn’t try to corroborate it and just took it at face value. Is that right?

Oh wait, didn’t the girl corroborate her claim with emails from a “friend” but really the friend was made up and it was just her? Or am I not remembering it correctly.

[Anonymous]

What is actually absurd is that people think her harassment case hangs on the interpretation of the one scene.

You can't prove OR disprove a hostile work environment claim by looking at one incident.

Did he enter her trailer unannounced while she was nursing or pumping? Did she ask him not to? Did he do it again?

Did Heath enter the makeup trailer while she was topless even after she asked him not to? Did she ask him to turn around? Did he?

Did Baldoni and Heath suddenly introduce the idea of Lively being fully nude for the birthing scene on the day of the shoot? Did they attempt to show her a video of a nude birth without her consent? Was Lively denied some kind of covering during the filming of the scene when asked? Was the set open or closed?

Did Lively make requests for the IC to be present in certain scenes and was this request respected? Did Baldoni make scenes more intimate or introduce nudity to scenes where it was not scripted, and fail to engage the IC or ensure Lively was giving consent to these changes?

Did Wayfarer properly obtain nudity riders from Lively for all nudity in the movie, and did the film follow contractual obligations of the rider?

Was the IC engaged following typical industry standards?

And then there are all these more minor allegations that could contribute to hostile work environment, if true. Like the allegation that Baldoni told Lively, on multiple occasions and even after she asked him not to, that he was communicating with her dead father. Or the allegation that Baldoni repeatedly discussed pornography with Lively even after she asked him not to, and made fun of the fact that she had disclosed to him that she had never seen pornography to a group of crew members.

I have no idea what the truth to these allegations is. Neither does anyone else on this thread. But this is what the case is about. It does not hinge on whether or not Lively appears to look uncomfortable in a few minutes of b-roll. That footage will be relevant to the case as it concerns one of her allegations. But the case does not revolve around it and if they can prove other allegations, it may not mater if the fact finder concludes that specific institute did not constitute harassment or contribute to hostile work environment.

Y'all are trying to litigate this case without discovery. It's dumb. We don't know! We also may never know if it settles out of court which it probably should, because figuring out the veracity of all of the forgoing allegations is going to be painful and unpleasant for all involved.

[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…

Yea absolutely and this isn't helping the NYT's reputation. But a court is not going to hold the NYT to a different std than another newspaper. They can report on the "breaking news" of her complaint without investigating every other angle and always putting in the time and resources to do that.

Np. It’s not a court, it’s a jury. And yes, the NYT absolutely does get viewed differently. And context matters and libel by omission or implication can be actionable.

The NYT has been fighting a close to 10 year case over one sentence about ‘cross hairs’ and gun violence regarding Sara Palin in an op Ed. Meanwhile Fox blathers nonsense all the time. (Although they did finally get slammed in a big way over the election fraud case).

[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.

I'm a journalist, and I absolutely think the NY times is in trouble. For one thing, if you are making claims about someone, you need to tell them and give them enough time to make a response before publishing. They failed to do that.

They did though-- Baldoni had a heads up and request for comment, it was on the short side. However as my reporter husband told me, that's not unusual if you are asking a public person with lawyers and professional PR for comment (whereas if it was a private person you might give them more time to respond, depending on the nature of the allegations). None of the allegations were news to Baldoni-- he was already aware of the on-set harassment allegations and they were also aware of the complaint. So a few hours for comment in that scenario is apparently not unusual (per my DH).

I personally think the reporting was a little sloppy, especially given that they attached Twohey's name to it and took the me too angle. But not wrong. And they had confirmation of the texts veracity from the PR firm.

It would be different if it was shown the texts were falsified. They weren't. They were cherry picked. But Baldoni did in fact hire the firm to smear Lively -- in addition to the texts, there are documents that show the firm's goals and plans of attack. It's not like they went to press with nothing or lies. The coverage was just slanted toward Lively, which is not illegal or legally actionable.

They did go to press with lies, lies that would have been uncovered had they talked to him, or to the pr ladies.

Please point to the lies they published. And no, "Lively alleges XYZ" is not a lie of it is what she is alleging.

I’m not going through every line of the article with you, it’s lengthy. Her entire case is built on straws and even the tiniest but of investigation would have revealed that.

It isn't the NYT's job to litigate her whole case. She filed a complaint. They reported in it. They verified that the texts were real. That's it. You are expecting them to serve as judge and jury before publishing info about litigation involving noteworthy people. That's not how it works

You’re right in that the NYT has some defenses under a fair report privilege, but they really screwed up here by publishing those texts without the context and publishing a very one sided damning story about Baldoni and the PR people. Successful defamation lawsuits have been brought for much less than this. And the NYT’s claim to ‘defend this case blah blah’ means nothing. That’s PR blather. They will likely settle. You’ll see media outlets doing that a lot from now on, given the S Ct risk of NYT v Sullivan

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is actually absurd is that people think her harassment case hangs on the interpretation of the one scene.

You can't prove OR disprove a hostile work environment claim by looking at one incident.

Did he enter her trailer unannounced while she was nursing or pumping? Did she ask him not to? Did he do it again?

Did Heath enter the makeup trailer while she was topless even after she asked him not to? Did she ask him to turn around? Did he?

Did Baldoni and Heath suddenly introduce the idea of Lively being fully nude for the birthing scene on the day of the shoot? Did they attempt to show her a video of a nude birth without her consent? Was Lively denied some kind of covering during the filming of the scene when asked? Was the set open or closed?

Did Lively make requests for the IC to be present in certain scenes and was this request respected? Did Baldoni make scenes more intimate or introduce nudity to scenes where it was not scripted, and fail to engage the IC or ensure Lively was giving consent to these changes?

Did Wayfarer properly obtain nudity riders from Lively for all nudity in the movie, and did the film follow contractual obligations of the rider?

Was the IC engaged following typical industry standards?

And then there are all these more minor allegations that could contribute to hostile work environment, if true. Like the allegation that Baldoni told Lively, on multiple occasions and even after she asked him not to, that he was communicating with her dead father. Or the allegation that Baldoni repeatedly discussed pornography with Lively even after she asked him not to, and made fun of the fact that she had disclosed to him that she had never seen pornography to a group of crew members.

I have no idea what the truth to these allegations is. Neither does anyone else on this thread. But this is what the case is about. It does not hinge on whether or not Lively appears to look uncomfortable in a few minutes of b-roll. That footage will be relevant to the case as it concerns one of her allegations. But the case does not revolve around it and if they can prove other allegations, it may not mater if the fact finder concludes that specific institute did not constitute harassment or contribute to hostile work environment.

Y'all are trying to litigate this case without discovery. It's dumb. We don't know! We also may never know if it settles out of court which it probably should, because figuring out the veracity of all of the forgoing allegations is going to be painful and unpleasant for all involved.

When you allege things happened a certain way in your complaint and then recordings of you and texts sent by you disprove that, you have ruined your credibility. That is what happened here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think Blake was arguing that each occurrence on it’s on by itself was harassment. Harassment is usually a pattern and isolated incidents are not the problem but when there is repeated behaviour. Just like someone stopping by your house once isn’t a threat oblem but if they stop by 10 times making you very uncomfortable, you are still going to mention the first time. And even if they say their intention wasn’t to stalk you, he behaviour can still be a problem.

A toxic work environment isn’t one occurrence. It can be the cumulative effect of multiple things.

And just because this is a film set and they are acting doesn’t mean there are no rules or limits or expectations. It isn’t an anything goes work environment either.

But she is claiming sexual harassment. Not a toxic work environment or general harassment.

Toxic work environment is a subset of sexual harassment. Plus she's claiming that Baldoni tried to retaliate against her for raising employment-related concerns (both sexual harassment and more general issues), which is a standard employment claim.

I don't know where people got the idea that Lively's complaint alleged that she was sexually harassed one time by Baldoni in this one scene for which we have footage. This is like 1-2 paragraphs from a complaint that details pages and pages and pages of alleged harassment, contractual violations, and retaliation.