Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then it becomes his word vs her word. Again, a wash if no physical evidence to corroborate. Filing a complaint is not a legal “gotcha”. It’s simply that someone filed a complaint or discussed feelings of discomfort.

I could file a complaint. So much more is needed to make this into something, and it’s not there. Good try.

Testimony is evidence. Writing what happened in a complaint is evidence. Many discrimination or harassment cases will not have more than that. It's unlikely every workplace interaction is audio or video recorded. Filing a complaint is not a magical gotcha, but it is evidence a jury can consider and weigh its credibility and relevance.

+1, even in a true he said/she said, the parties can testify and jury could find SH based on nothing but testimony and credibility if the witnesses.

But this is already shaping up to not be a he said/she said -- there are additional witnesses to almost every allegation in Lively's complaint. There are emails and texts, contracts (including a nudity rider), a script and hours of film footage of the set. Also, because some of the alleged harassment occurred during filming if scenes with kissing and touching, as well as simulated nudity, there will undoubtedly be expert testimony to determine where the line for harassment exists in that setting. I know a lot of non-actors believe that in agreeing to do the movie, Lively agreed to all of it, but there's actually a ton of contract and employment law regarding film sets, and the standard for what is reasonable may be informed by experts such as intimacy coordinators and others who can speak to what is typical, or "industry standard" in those situations.

That's why many of us who are lawyers are interested in the case. If it really were a classic "he said, she said" it would have pretty minimal interest for the legal community. Instead it's a fascinating confluence of employment, discrimination, first amendment, and business torts. Plus the litigants are famous, one of the lawyers is worthy of his own network drama based on his life/personality, and the litigation concerns not one but two of the biggest box office hits of last summer. Way bigger than a he said/she said!

I thinking not, unless you are a lawyer on her case. I think you are overblowing what you think is good content. JS would have to assert something pretty crazy to alter anyone’s mind on what was said as being a form of SH. And still that is not enough.

BL wouldn’t be trying this hard if she had a slam dunk case. I think it’s nice to have lawyers talk and think about this case, but it’s not there, and BL/RR know it. At this point, I think they are using JS testimony for settlement purposes and nothing more.

Let it proceed. Not going to be a trial.

BL would absolutely be trying "this hard" even with a very strong case. You can't go about this kind of litigation lackadaisically. You are all in or not at all. Same with Baldoni -- he's certainly trying very hard, isn't he? Does that mean he has no case at all? Of course not. The fact that both sides are going at it so hard is an indication that they both believe they are in the right and can prevail, whether in settlement or at trial.

And I simply disagree with you that Lively has no case. If she truly had no case at all, Baldoni or some of the other defendants would have filed motions to dismiss already. They haven't, because it's not that straightforward. There are real issues of fact regarding both the SH and retaliation claims and there's every indication that her lawsuit has the legs to move forward at least into discovery. I will reserve judgment because who knows what will have in discovery, but the idea that they have no case is ridiculous. Most of her allegations have not even been addressed by Baldoni at all yet (which is normal, she has responded to his complaint yet either).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

This just seems like more evidence that they never ever intended it for to go this far. She was never thinking about a legal case, she just wanted to hold things over his head and threaten him. From the very first few weeks they interacted she started swing the fat shaming thing, she tested it out and it worked. He fell in line and gave in to a demand. Then later, she was adding more things, and he continued to fall in line. So then I think when she got pushed to the brink with all of the bad press in August, she just figured he would continue to fall in line to stop the bleeding as he had before. Throw in the complaint so we have an excuse for a NYT me too article and let’s put the mail in the coffin.

Now that he hasn’t, and he has a bulldog in Freedman and a backer willing to pay the bills, it just seems like they are scrambling to piece together this case, but formal documentation and formal processes really would’ve helped.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

This just seems like more evidence that they never ever intended it for to go this far. She was never thinking about a legal case, she just wanted to hold things over his head and threaten him. From the very first few weeks they interacted she started swing the fat shaming thing, she tested it out and it worked. He fell in line and gave in to a demand. Then later, she was adding more things, and he continued to fall in line. So then I think when she got pushed to the brink with all of the bad press in August, she just figured he would continue to fall in line to stop the bleeding as he had before. Throw in the complaint so we have an excuse for a NYT me too article and let’s put the mail in the coffin.

Now that he hasn’t, and he has a bulldog in Freedman and a backer willing to pay the bills, it just seems like they are scrambling to piece together this case, but formal documentation and formal processes really would’ve helped.

The way that you all continue to gloss over the fact that your boy hired a PR firm for the express purpose of burying Lively in the public opinion, and that there is (unusually, even at this stage of the process) actual text message etc evidence to prove this, which also shows he was aware of the process (and whose main response was "not sure they are going hard enough for me" and "but wait not the bots they're too obvious!") and that despite this you still continue posting that she has no case continues to be bananas to me. Why would she settle, when at the end of the day, she has that? Good luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Then it becomes his word vs her word. Again, a wash if no physical evidence to corroborate. Filing a complaint is not a legal “gotcha”. It’s simply that someone filed a complaint or discussed feelings of discomfort.

I could file a complaint. So much more is needed to make this into something, and it’s not there. Good try.

Testimony is evidence. Writing what happened in a complaint is evidence. Many discrimination or harassment cases will not have more than that. It's unlikely every workplace interaction is audio or video recorded. Filing a complaint is not a magical gotcha, but it is evidence a jury can consider and weigh its credibility and relevance.

+1, even in a true he said/she said, the parties can testify and jury could find SH based on nothing but testimony and credibility if the witnesses.

But this is already shaping up to not be a he said/she said -- there are additional witnesses to almost every allegation in Lively's complaint. There are emails and texts, contracts (including a nudity rider), a script and hours of film footage of the set. Also, because some of the alleged harassment occurred during filming if scenes with kissing and touching, as well as simulated nudity, there will undoubtedly be expert testimony to determine where the line for harassment exists in that setting. I know a lot of non-actors believe that in agreeing to do the movie, Lively agreed to all of it, but there's actually a ton of contract and employment law regarding film sets, and the standard for what is reasonable may be informed by experts such as intimacy coordinators and others who can speak to what is typical, or "industry standard" in those situations.

That's why many of us who are lawyers are interested in the case. If it really were a classic "he said, she said" it would have pretty minimal interest for the legal community. Instead it's a fascinating confluence of employment, discrimination, first amendment, and business torts. Plus the litigants are famous, one of the lawyers is worthy of his own network drama based on his life/personality, and the litigation concerns not one but two of the biggest box office hits of last summer. Way bigger than a he said/she said!

The challenge though is there is no evidence at this point of an actual HR complaint. It seems like Blake is saying she asked Sony, they told her they couldn’t handle it, and then she kind of threw her hands up and didn’t know what to do. Which I find a little hard to believe, considering she has a big legal and management team that could’ve helped her navigate.

As you said, the evidence will be really important here, so evidence of HR complaint would certainly be helpful, but she hasn’t revealed them yet even in redacted form.

It seems like the January 4 all hands meeting that was the forum for going over a lot of the complaints that is the basis for this case, Baldoni‘s team was specifically told they were not sexual in nature, it was not supposed to be a meeting that required HR, and that they were totally blindsided by the list. So I feel like that weakens her case somewhat.

It would be much stronger if the union got involved or she had used appropriate channels, it doesn’t look like she did. There is some speculation that Jenny filed an HR complaint, but I’ve heard mixed things about that, that she did, that Sony heard she was going to but she didn’t, and blah blah blah, but I’m not seeing evidence of a formal complaint. I’m also not seeing evidence if she did file that is would fit the nature of a sexual harassment complaint.

The issue with HR complaints is that it's still not clear what the correct process was for filing them. It appears Slate's complaint was filed with Sony and then kicked back to Wayfarer to handle it. This actually corroborates some details in Lively's complaint that she attempted to complain to Sony and they told her that she was not an employee of Sony for purposes of the production (Sony was signed on as distributor and provided some financing, but the producing studio was Wayfarer). This would also explain why someone at Sony states last August that no complaints had been filed during the production -- from Sony's perspective, perhaps no complaints were technically filed with them because they told all concerned parties that their HR department could not receive complaints from non-employees.

As for Wayfarer, it's really unclear. Wayfarer has an HR department and lists an HR director on their website. Her name doesn't appear in a single place in any of the complaints filed thus far. Which is weird -- why wouldn't Wayfarer have directed complaints to go through her, as a means to protect themselves, as you point out? That wouldn't have been up to Lively or anyone else complaining. If people are complaining about workplace harassment, HR can open a file on it. Is there one? Only Wayfarer knows.

It's not clear how Lively was reporting her issues as filming proceeded. The one incident from before filming, involving Baldoni asking Lively's trainer what her weight was, appears to have been handled without HR at all. But Lively also might not have technically been an employee yet. I've read different things about how pre-production is treated from an employment perspective for actors. I've seen some actors argue that this was likely why Lively declined to attend that meet and greet with the IC -- it would be working "off the clock" so to speak and some actors prefer to minimize that until, at least, the table read. But we don't know, I'm just speculating here.

But then there were a number of issues that arose during the first weeks of filming, including multiple incidents where Lively' felt Baldoni crossed a line, physically with her while filming scenes, multiple on-set but off-camera incidents regarding comments by Heath and Baldoni that Lively felt were inappropriate and sexually charged (the conversations about pornography, the discussion of women they'd previously dated). Somewhere in there is also the alleged incident with Slate and Heath which got reported to Sony but sent back to Wayfarer. And then there's the birth scene, which encompasses several allegations, and the subsequent incident where Heath attempted to show Lively the birthing video. It's clear from both complaints that Wayfarer was aware of Lively's concerns regarding most of these incidents. But it's not clear HOW they became aware, whether Lively filed a complaint in the same manner Slate did (with Sony and then it got kicked back to Wayfarer) or if she simply told Baldoni and Heath these incidents bothered her, or possibly went through her agent or assistant to verbally register concerns (for instance having Lively's agent call Baldoni or Heath directly). We don't know and it's not clear from either complaint.

It is also not clear what process, if any, Wayfarer engaged to address these issues as the arose. Was HR involved, and if not, why not? If HR was not involved, is there any documentation for showing that the concerns were registered, addressed, and resolved (this is the specific advantage of involving HR, to create this kind of paper trail that could be produced in a case like this)? Or was everything verbal and ad hoc (if so, very bad policy on Wayfarer's part and potentially very troubling from a legal perspective, especially if Lively can show that any of the reported issues recurred -- this would establish a pattern of inaction even if Wayfarer believed they were handling the complaints via conversation with Lively or others).

In Lively's list that was presented at the January 2024 meeting, it states that she is willing to waive a formal HR process going forward if Wayfarer agrees to her demands. But this does not rule out the idea that there was a formal process in existence BEFORE the meeting and raises other questions for me -- did Wayfarer want to avoid a formal HR process? Because that's how it's phrased in Lively's list of demands, as though waiving a formal process is a benefit to them. Why would they want that? And if Wayfarer had insisted instead on going through HR, how would Lively have responded? We do not know the answers to these questions but they are highly relevant to the case.

Anyway, the idea that we know or understand much about how, when or with whom complaints were filed, or how they were handled, is simply wrong. We know very little. Lively's complaint does a better job of detailing when she raised issues and mentions follow meetings and promises related to those complaints, but it's still vague on the process. But Baldoni's complaint is even more vague -- it doesn't mention a process at all. Perhaps that will show up in his response to her complaint, but given what else he's included in his amended complaint, I am a little surprise there's no CYA about following internal Wayfarer processes for dealing with employee complaints because that would persuasively undermine Lively's key SH allegations and serve to underpin Baldoni's contention that Lively's complaints were exaggerated or made after the fact as a means of gaining control of the film. Unless the record doesn't actually help them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

This just seems like more evidence that they never ever intended it for to go this far. She was never thinking about a legal case, she just wanted to hold things over his head and threaten him. From the very first few weeks they interacted she started swing the fat shaming thing, she tested it out and it worked. He fell in line and gave in to a demand. Then later, she was adding more things, and he continued to fall in line. So then I think when she got pushed to the brink with all of the bad press in August, she just figured he would continue to fall in line to stop the bleeding as he had before. Throw in the complaint so we have an excuse for a NYT me too article and let’s put the mail in the coffin.

Now that he hasn’t, and he has a bulldog in Freedman and a backer willing to pay the bills, it just seems like they are scrambling to piece together this case, but formal documentation and formal processes really would’ve helped.

The way that you all continue to gloss over the fact that your boy hired a PR firm for the express purpose of burying Lively in the public opinion, and that there is (unusually, even at this stage of the process) actual text message etc evidence to prove this, which also shows he was aware of the process (and whose main response was "not sure they are going hard enough for me" and "but wait not the bots they're too obvious!") and that despite this you still continue posting that she has no case continues to be bananas to me. Why would she settle, when at the end of the day, she has that? Good luck.

What? Were you not aware of what happened to Justin in August? His movie was completely taken from him, he didn’t even get to put out his cut, of the movie he directed and produced! Her cut scored lower and she still was able to put it out without his image, he did not get a film by credit on it, And there were all kinds of rumors going around that he had run a horrible set in the cast turned against him - what did you expect him to do? His reputation was draft you expect him not to hire some kind of crisis PR firm? Anyone with half a brain would have hired one.

I posted earlier, in an ideal world he would have just hired a PR crisis firm to focus on his reputation and not go after her at all, as that seemed to be done organically, but we don’t live in an ideal world. I still see no evidence that he was the reason her hairline has tanked, or that most of the bad press was not generated organically. Tons of the highest profile influencers that we’re doing podcast and TikTok talks on this, have come out and said they were never contacted by the firm. So she will have to prove that in court, and we’ll wait for her to do that. It’s quite possible that she can, but it just seems absurd to say that he never should have fought back or that he didn’t have a really good reason for hiring that firm.

What people are saying is there haven’t been a lot of evidence yet, and I just don’t understand why they would not have some smoking gun with all the terrible press that is happening, and she’s hemorrhaging followers from Instagram and saying that her hairline is not doing well - if they had something why wouldn’t they show it?

One of the strangest things is that they don’t even seem to be saying that they hired an Internet forensics team to track the bots. They are just saying oh Judd Watson did a bunch of stuff, but given Judd Watson is suing them, he obviously thinks he has a case against that and we will wait to see his evidence as well.

What people find strange is that the more evidence that Blake has put out, the more silent the cast that once supported her has been. You think it would be the opposite. A bunch of them put out statements of support back in December, and then since then they’ve either backtracked, taken down the posts, and nobody has said another word. To me that means her case isn’t so strong.

[Anonymous]

I guess I’m just not clear why there has not been more evidence of formal HR complaints. Even in redacted form. If the thinking is that Blake did not want to go to HR or I think one of the complaints mentioned she waived that option, why wouldn’t she have gotten better advice from her very seasoned team of management and lawyers?

I could be wrong, but I thought it would always be better to leave a paper trail for these kinds of things. Don’t waive off HR, include them! Right? In case this very thing comes up.

It doesn’t sound right that she was not an employee in preproduction. Especially since she was a producer. She would need to be involved in preproduction and she was officially announced on the film December 2022. I am not sure why she wouldn’t be considered a formal employee though even as an actress. There were things happening at that time like wardrobe coming to her apartment and stuff. I would think she’d have to be an employee for them to have started making those steps.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I’m just not clear why there has not been more evidence of formal HR complaints. Even in redacted form. If the thinking is that Blake did not want to go to HR or I think one of the complaints mentioned she waived that option, why wouldn’t she have gotten better advice from her very seasoned team of management and lawyers?

I could be wrong, but I thought it would always be better to leave a paper trail for these kinds of things. Don’t waive off HR, include them! Right? In case this very thing comes up.

It doesn’t sound right that she was not an employee in preproduction. Especially since she was a producer. She would need to be involved in preproduction and she was officially announced on the film December 2022. I am not sure why she wouldn’t be considered a formal employee though even as an actress. There were things happening at that time like wardrobe coming to her apartment and stuff. I would think she’d have to be an employee for them to have started making those steps.

It depends on the contract details. We do know they actually started filming without a signed contract from her, so they definitely didn't have a contract during pre-production. Even without a contract, she'd likely be considered an employee under CA law as of the first day of filming because they had an oral agreement and she was actually filming (which would be fulfilling the duties of the role she'd been hired for). But before that, not so much. And at that stage she was not a producer -- she'd asked for a producer credit but early on they rejected that request and made her an executive producer. Executive producers have no special duties related to pre-production and lots of actors get EP credits and do nothing beyond acting.

I do agree on HR though. But if no HR records have been produced, that's on Baldoni's side -- Lively wouldn't have access to those. It will be interesting to find out if such records exist and if so , what they say. If they don't exist, I think it's actually problematic for both sides but is probably worse for Baldoni et al if Lively has documentary evidence of her registering complaints. They should have involved HR and created a paper trail for sure, I'm surprised that they didn't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

I'm confused though. They could have conducted an HR process whether she assented to it or not? What prevented them from engaging HR?

I know her 17-point list said that she would agree to forgo a formal HR process if they signed, but the way that is phrased is like she would have liked to have a formal process but would let it go if they agreed to her demands. Perhaps that is misleading, but I am struggling to see where Wayfarer was prevented from conducting their own HR process and investigation. It seems obvious to me that they should have done so and certainly they had a right to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

I agree. A formal HR process would’ve protected wayfarer but I’m guessing the time horizon was a big part of the decision. From what I understand it was only a 6 week shoot and they were already over budget because of many of Blake’s demands.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

I agree. A formal HR process would’ve protected wayfarer but I’m guessing the time horizon was a big part of the decision. From what I understand it was only a 6 week shoot and they were already over budget because of many of Blake’s demands.

This is all wrong. They may have only filmed for 6 weeks, but they were on hiatus in the middle of those six weeks of six months due to the WGA and SAG strikes -- so plenty of time to conduct a thorough HR investigation. And while it is debatable how over budget the movie was and the reason for those budget issues, Wayfarer already employs HR staff. Why would an HR investigation have been costly? And why would those costs accrue to this specific production as opposed to the company itself as normal overhead of being an employer. It's not a specific expense of the production but just kind of the cost of being in business at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

This just seems like more evidence that they never ever intended it for to go this far. She was never thinking about a legal case, she just wanted to hold things over his head and threaten him. From the very first few weeks they interacted she started swing the fat shaming thing, she tested it out and it worked. He fell in line and gave in to a demand. Then later, she was adding more things, and he continued to fall in line. So then I think when she got pushed to the brink with all of the bad press in August, she just figured he would continue to fall in line to stop the bleeding as he had before. Throw in the complaint so we have an excuse for a NYT me too article and let’s put the mail in the coffin.

Now that he hasn’t, and he has a bulldog in Freedman and a backer willing to pay the bills, it just seems like they are scrambling to piece together this case, but formal documentation and formal processes really would’ve helped.

The way that you all continue to gloss over the fact that your boy hired a PR firm for the express purpose of burying Lively in the public opinion, and that there is (unusually, even at this stage of the process) actual text message etc evidence to prove this, which also shows he was aware of the process (and whose main response was "not sure they are going hard enough for me" and "but wait not the bots they're too obvious!") and that despite this you still continue posting that she has no case continues to be bananas to me. Why would she settle, when at the end of the day, she has that? Good luck.

Your boy? WTH is wrong with you?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

I agree. A formal HR process would’ve protected wayfarer but I’m guessing the time horizon was a big part of the decision. From what I understand it was only a 6 week shoot and they were already over budget because of many of Blake’s demands.

This is all wrong. They may have only filmed for 6 weeks, but they were on hiatus in the middle of those six weeks of six months due to the WGA and SAG strikes -- so plenty of time to conduct a thorough HR investigation. And while it is debatable how over budget the movie was and the reason for those budget issues, Wayfarer already employs HR staff. Why would an HR investigation have been costly? And why would those costs accrue to this specific production as opposed to the company itself as normal overhead of being an employer. It's not a specific expense of the production but just kind of the cost of being in business at all.

Where do her multiple bouts of strep and flu and sick kids requiring her to not film as if she was the subject of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother come in time wise?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer:

It seems she wanted all the employee protections of making a formal HR complaint, but at the same time expected the employer (Wayfarer) to forgo all the protections the formal HR process would afford them.

Having her cake and eating it too, so to speak.

How so?

It makes sense in my brain but I’m not sure I can explain it well. There was a lot of discussion earlier about HR existing not to protect the employee but to protect the employer. So, in foregoing the HR process, he gave up Wayfarer’s right to conduct an independent HR investigation; to determine whether her claims had merit; to show how it all was handled; and to put all of that in writing.

But she gave up nothing. In fact, she only gained from the “compromise.” (Which seemed to be framed as a good faith effort to get people back to work.) She still gets to allege that she filed a HR complaint; she was able to lord the accusations over his head to get more and more control of the movie; and she and Ryan were able to bully him for eternity, apparently. When were they going to stop picking on him? Ever?

I do hope that skipping the HR process backfires on her and Ryan—that they say, no, you needed to make a formal complaint, not create an extortion situation. But it probably won’t, because they’ve always had the power all along. And we all know how that goes.

I agree. A formal HR process would’ve protected wayfarer but I’m guessing the time horizon was a big part of the decision. From what I understand it was only a 6 week shoot and they were already over budget because of many of Blake’s demands.

This is all wrong. They may have only filmed for 6 weeks, but they were on hiatus in the middle of those six weeks of six months due to the WGA and SAG strikes -- so plenty of time to conduct a thorough HR investigation. And while it is debatable how over budget the movie was and the reason for those budget issues, Wayfarer already employs HR staff. Why would an HR investigation have been costly? And why would those costs accrue to this specific production as opposed to the company itself as normal overhead of being an employer. It's not a specific expense of the production but just kind of the cost of being in business at all.

Where do her multiple bouts of strep and flu and sick kids requiring her to not film as if she was the subject of Dorothea Lange’s Migrant Mother come in time wise?

Why is illness not a valid reason not to film? I believe the thing that was postponed was actually done filming that was supposed to be done in Vegas, and may have included intimate scenes. So you think Lively should have flown across the country and filmed intimate scenes with Baldoni, while sick? WTF?

Insurance will often cover shooting delays related to illness. I did read that the production neglected to purchase Covid insurance so when there was a Covid outbreak onset (that infected Lively and her son), the production had to eat the losses associated with those delays.

How is that Lively's fault?