Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's another fun read. This is an attachment to NYT's MTD that shows the correspondence between Jennifer Abel and Meghan Twohey prior to publication of the article: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.107.7.pdf

It includes the statement from Bryan Freedman provided by Abel. Also I thought this was telling -- Twohey asks Abel if the statement from Freedman applies to "Mr. Baldoni, Jamey Heath, Steve Sarowitz, you, Ms. Abel, and Melissa Nathan" and Abel replies:

"Yes, and Jed Wallace."

Wallace is in the middle of all of it. And keep in mind this shows how tightly aligned Abel, Nathan, Freedman, Wallace, Baldoni, Heath, and Sarowitz all were even before the NYT article dropped. Tucked up cozy in bed together, nice and tight.

Wow, just wow. So anyways, what are your thoughts on Ari making a podcast episode disappear?

I think it's funny that you have nothing at all to say on something that is directly relevant one of the lawsuits this whole thread is based on (the one actually referenced in the thread title) and want to redirect to an internet rumor about whether or not Ari Emanuel got Freakonomics to take down a podcast, something that may have happened, I don't know, but has no bearing whatsoever on the lawsuits. I don't care about Ari Emanuel.

NP and it doesnt matter to me so much that the Freakonomics podcaster somehow lost the ability to post the video of the interview. Just this one interview.
Because the audio is still available out there to grab.
And in it, Ari not only attempts to humiliate HB by calling him “Baloney—Baldoni—whatever” (which is strange to refer to a client of 5+ years in your own prestigious management firm that way) but he then gleefully brags that he fired JB simply because he is “ride or die” for RR and BL. I’d say that’s a pretty strong statement supporting damages incurred to/career opportunities lost by JB as a result of BL’s SH claim.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To PP, look, I appreciate your friends at DWT are being paid a pile of $ to litigate this case- good old media liability coverage kicking in and NYT has tons of it- but that doesn’t mean Freedman’s doing a bad job and it doesn’t mean the NYT will prevail

Freedman's doing great PR-wise.

And regarding the Lively case, he's maneuvering well. I think it's somewhat evenly matched there at this point, but Freedman certainly isn't doing a bad job on that front.

I think Freedman is completely out over his skis in the defamation case against NYT and that the lawsuit was a bit of a stunt (which, again, from a PR perspective was very effective) and is unlikely to get much further than this.

I don't know anyone at Davis Wright. I wish I knew Kate Bolger, she's a great attorney!

And how would you know that if you don’t know anything about her or the firm?

Ugh, are you not familiar with other people in your industry who do good work? Lawyers are also like academics in that a lot of their work is published and read by others in the industry even if you have no connection to the thing they are working on or their organization.

Do you really find it surprising that the NYT's 1st Amendment lawyer would be well known and respected?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYT has filed a motion to dismiss, the motion and some of the attachments (some interesting info there) are available on court listener already: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69510553/106/lively-v-wayfarer-studios-llc/

My favorite quote so far: "Throughout their blunderbuss complaint, the Wayfarer Parties seek to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively."

Blunderbuss. Perfect. Underused. Adding it to the arsenal.

Another great quote:

In fact, in this way, the Wayfarer Parties’ FAC is like that in Komatsu, which the court dismissed in part because the complaints’ length and “tangents” “make it difficult to understand exactly how the facts alleged provide a basis for Plaintiff’s claims—or which facts support which allegations—causing significant prejudice to Defendants who must sift through hundreds of pages ... to fully ascertain the nature of the charges against them.”

It's honestly a relief to see someone correctly describing that Wayfarer complaint as the meandering, publicity-focused mess it is. I've been waiting for this.

Hilarious coming from the same NYT that claimed they they sifted through thousands of pages of text messages. Now a few hundred pages of a complaint is too long? Their lawyers are almost as bad as Lively’s. The judge will be sick of them pretty quick.

Exactly. Their lawyers are good legal technocrats, not true trial attorneys.

Yes, everyone knows judges are swayed by 200 pages of blurry, irrelevant text messages as opposed to a concise, technically excellent motion based on relevant precedent, logical arguments, and only the salient facts. I'm sure Liman is angrily throwing Bolger's motion at the wall right now and yelling at clerks, "not heavy enough! Where's all the extraneous and contradictory detail?! Nothing in here for TMZ to quote at all! Damn technocrats have no idea what they're doing!"

Of course the judge isnt saying that, but you and I both know this case has a decent chance of getting to trial if the P’s want it to.

And you obviously have a DWT connection but I’ll just say, we shall see. I’d hire DWT on appeal, not for a case to go to trial. Their trial experience is weak.

No, she doesn’t have a connection to DWT nor is she a litigator, she is just a big fan of Blake.

I'm the PP and I don't care about Blake Lively and the only think I've ever seen her in is Gossip Girl, which I only watched two seasons of before getting bored.

I think it's interesting that rather than engage on the legal arguments, some of you always go to "you must work for this law firm" or "you are a Blake Lively fan." If you want to spar over the cases, great! Happy to engage. I don't get the point of accusing everyone of being biased because... duh, everyone is biased. But that doesn't mean we can't discuss the merits of the cases. I admit I'm biased in that I believe in very strong first amendment protections for journalists and I prefer for cases to be litigated in court based on laws and precedent rather than in the court of public opinion. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of acknowledging Freedman is very skilled at the way he litigates and it's working to some extent, or that I don't think there's any situation where a journalist should lose a defamation case. I'm more open minded than you give me credit for. But you have to *make the argument.*

Just dismissing me as biased is boring. I daresay it's as dull as Blake Lively's film oeuvre, which is pretty dull from what I can tell.

All of this may be true, but I recognize from both your writing style and love of repetition that you have written countless, and I truly mean countless, posts supporting Blake’s allegations. You often claim to not “like Blake” buthave page after page after page of posts here suppprting her allegations. Which is perfectly fine, but you should just acknowledge it.

Your legal analysis strikes me as quite simplistic and often erroneous. For exanple, you keep asserting there is a default choice of law. There is no such thing in federal court where the parties are from different states. The test, under NY state law, is what state has the biggest interest in the case. The NY Times claims that by filing in a federal court that is physically located in NY state sthe Wayfarer plaintiffs believe NY to have the bigger interest in the case. This isn’t a bad argument had the Wayfarer plaintiffs been the first to file, if they truly had the choice of any federal court on the country picking NY would be significant. However, they were second to file and chose NY solely to consolidate their complaint with the complaint already filed by Blake. I believe that maybe you are a lawyer, but definitely not a litigator.

[Anonymous]

I'll never understand the law firm squabbling and cheerleading and accusations that someone must work for a firm or be a Blake fan especially based on their read on boring topics such as whether NY or CA controls.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To PP, look, I appreciate your friends at DWT are being paid a pile of $ to litigate this case- good old media liability coverage kicking in and NYT has tons of it- but that doesn’t mean Freedman’s doing a bad job and it doesn’t mean the NYT will prevail

Freedman's doing great PR-wise.

And regarding the Lively case, he's maneuvering well. I think it's somewhat evenly matched there at this point, but Freedman certainly isn't doing a bad job on that front.

I think Freedman is completely out over his skis in the defamation case against NYT and that the lawsuit was a bit of a stunt (which, again, from a PR perspective was very effective) and is unlikely to get much further than this.

I don't know anyone at Davis Wright. I wish I knew Kate Bolger, she's a great attorney!

And how would you know that if you don’t know anything about her or the firm?

Ugh, are you not familiar with other people in your industry who do good work? Lawyers are also like academics in that a lot of their work is published and read by others in the industry even if you have no connection to the thing they are working on or their organization.

Do you really find it surprising that the NYT's 1st Amendment lawyer would be well known and respected?

Not pp. We don’t care who you know. Can we please move on from this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYT has filed a motion to dismiss, the motion and some of the attachments (some interesting info there) are available on court listener already: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69510553/106/lively-v-wayfarer-studios-llc/

My favorite quote so far: "Throughout their blunderbuss complaint, the Wayfarer Parties seek to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively."

Blunderbuss. Perfect. Underused. Adding it to the arsenal.

Another great quote:

In fact, in this way, the Wayfarer Parties’ FAC is like that in Komatsu, which the court dismissed in part because the complaints’ length and “tangents” “make it difficult to understand exactly how the facts alleged provide a basis for Plaintiff’s claims—or which facts support which allegations—causing significant prejudice to Defendants who must sift through hundreds of pages ... to fully ascertain the nature of the charges against them.”

It's honestly a relief to see someone correctly describing that Wayfarer complaint as the meandering, publicity-focused mess it is. I've been waiting for this.

Hilarious coming from the same NYT that claimed they they sifted through thousands of pages of text messages. Now a few hundred pages of a complaint is too long? Their lawyers are almost as bad as Lively’s. The judge will be sick of them pretty quick.

Exactly. Their lawyers are good legal technocrats, not true trial attorneys.

Yes, everyone knows judges are swayed by 200 pages of blurry, irrelevant text messages as opposed to a concise, technically excellent motion based on relevant precedent, logical arguments, and only the salient facts. I'm sure Liman is angrily throwing Bolger's motion at the wall right now and yelling at clerks, "not heavy enough! Where's all the extraneous and contradictory detail?! Nothing in here for TMZ to quote at all! Damn technocrats have no idea what they're doing!"

Of course the judge isnt saying that, but you and I both know this case has a decent chance of getting to trial if the P’s want it to.

And you obviously have a DWT connection but I’ll just say, we shall see. I’d hire DWT on appeal, not for a case to go to trial. Their trial experience is weak.

No, she doesn’t have a connection to DWT nor is she a litigator, she is just a big fan of Blake.

I'm the PP and I don't care about Blake Lively and the only think I've ever seen her in is Gossip Girl, which I only watched two seasons of before getting bored.

I think it's interesting that rather than engage on the legal arguments, some of you always go to "you must work for this law firm" or "you are a Blake Lively fan." If you want to spar over the cases, great! Happy to engage. I don't get the point of accusing everyone of being biased because... duh, everyone is biased. But that doesn't mean we can't discuss the merits of the cases. I admit I'm biased in that I believe in very strong first amendment protections for journalists and I prefer for cases to be litigated in court based on laws and precedent rather than in the court of public opinion. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of acknowledging Freedman is very skilled at the way he litigates and it's working to some extent, or that I don't think there's any situation where a journalist should lose a defamation case. I'm more open minded than you give me credit for. But you have to *make the argument.*

Just dismissing me as biased is boring. I daresay it's as dull as Blake Lively's film oeuvre, which is pretty dull from what I can tell.

All of this may be true, but I recognize from both your writing style and love of repetition that you have written countless, and I truly mean countless, posts supporting Blake’s allegations. You often claim to not “like Blake” buthave page after page after page of posts here suppprting her allegations. Which is perfectly fine, but you should just acknowledge it.

Your legal analysis strikes me as quite simplistic and often erroneous. For exanple, you keep asserting there is a default choice of law. There is no such thing in federal court where the parties are from different states. The test, under NY state law, is what state has the biggest interest in the case. The NY Times claims that by filing in a federal court that is physically located in NY state sthe Wayfarer plaintiffs believe NY to have the bigger interest in the case. This isn’t a bad argument had the Wayfarer plaintiffs been the first to file, if they truly had the choice of any federal court on the country picking NY would be significant. However, they were second to file and chose NY solely to consolidate their complaint with the complaint already filed by Blake. I believe that maybe you are a lawyer, but definitely not a litigator.

+1 they filed in ny b/c Blake filed there. Pretty simple and actually an example of another fight I’m sure the judge is glad they won’t have to referee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'll never understand the law firm squabbling and cheerleading and accusations that someone must work for a firm or be a Blake fan especially based on their read on boring topics such as whether NY or CA controls.

Why pretend to be a lawyer in one post and then write this? Choice of law, boring or not, is critical to one of the grounds for dismissal raised in the motion.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To PP, look, I appreciate your friends at DWT are being paid a pile of $ to litigate this case- good old media liability coverage kicking in and NYT has tons of it- but that doesn’t mean Freedman’s doing a bad job and it doesn’t mean the NYT will prevail

Freedman's doing great PR-wise.

And regarding the Lively case, he's maneuvering well. I think it's somewhat evenly matched there at this point, but Freedman certainly isn't doing a bad job on that front.

I think Freedman is completely out over his skis in the defamation case against NYT and that the lawsuit was a bit of a stunt (which, again, from a PR perspective was very effective) and is unlikely to get much further than this.

I don't know anyone at Davis Wright. I wish I knew Kate Bolger, she's a great attorney!

And how would you know that if you don’t know anything about her or the firm?

Ugh, are you not familiar with other people in your industry who do good work? Lawyers are also like academics in that a lot of their work is published and read by others in the industry even if you have no connection to the thing they are working on or their organization.

Do you really find it surprising that the NYT's 1st Amendment lawyer would be well known and respected?

You can’t answer the question? What industry do you work in? Bc no, most lawyers - even lawyers working around media- aren’t going to know DWT or Bolger. You’re an insider, but sure, keep lying. Fwiw, I am as well.

I don’t think she is an insider, she got their names off the brief.

You might be right. It’s just so preposterous, I feel the need to argue over it. So maybe she’s not an actual legal insider, but shes pro Blake for reasons that don’t make sense other than her having some personal bias.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's another fun read. This is an attachment to NYT's MTD that shows the correspondence between Jennifer Abel and Meghan Twohey prior to publication of the article: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.107.7.pdf

It includes the statement from Bryan Freedman provided by Abel. Also I thought this was telling -- Twohey asks Abel if the statement from Freedman applies to "Mr. Baldoni, Jamey Heath, Steve Sarowitz, you, Ms. Abel, and Melissa Nathan" and Abel replies:

"Yes, and Jed Wallace."

Wallace is in the middle of all of it. And keep in mind this shows how tightly aligned Abel, Nathan, Freedman, Wallace, Baldoni, Heath, and Sarowitz all were even before the NYT article dropped. Tucked up cozy in bed together, nice and tight.

Wow, just wow. So anyways, what are your thoughts on Ari making a podcast episode disappear?

I think it's funny that you have nothing at all to say on something that is directly relevant one of the lawsuits this whole thread is based on (the one actually referenced in the thread title) and want to redirect to an internet rumor about whether or not Ari Emanuel got Freakonomics to take down a podcast, something that may have happened, I don't know, but has no bearing whatsoever on the lawsuits. I don't care about Ari Emanuel.

Nobody cares about this inside baseball and your crisis PR talking points. It's just Zzzzzzz. Blake and Ryan have already lost. The masses have already concluded this was all a hoax, that Blake and Ryan have been busted red handed, that scummy bullies like Ari helped them, and that the NY Times is a fading dinosaur, which has lost about 20% of its subscribers in the last 24 months.

This is true. Their team is playing them for suckers and milking them. These efforts are not swaying anyone's opinion or improving their Q scores. That ship has sailed.

[Anonymous]

I’m not a lawyer but I don’t think the nyt case will be dismissed. It’s tough to prove defamation against a news organization b/c of all their protections, but there’s enough there to warrant a trial. Megan Twohey and co did really shotty journalism and then doubled down on the daily podcast after the lawsuit was filed. They never printed any corrections or updates acknowledging facts they’d missed or gotten wrong, which would seem to be a minimum standard in impartial journalism. Again not a lawyer here, but I think the better play for the nyt would’ve been to print an update and adjust their reporting going fwd to be more neutral to show they’re just the news and doing what news orgs do (which should be reporting the facts no matter where they lead). Instead they’ve pretty much doubled down on their support for Blake, which while perhaps helpful to the reynolds, won’t be helpful to the nyt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Here's another fun read. This is an attachment to NYT's MTD that shows the correspondence between Jennifer Abel and Meghan Twohey prior to publication of the article: https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304/gov.uscourts.nysd.634304.107.7.pdf

It includes the statement from Bryan Freedman provided by Abel. Also I thought this was telling -- Twohey asks Abel if the statement from Freedman applies to "Mr. Baldoni, Jamey Heath, Steve Sarowitz, you, Ms. Abel, and Melissa Nathan" and Abel replies:

"Yes, and Jed Wallace."

Wallace is in the middle of all of it. And keep in mind this shows how tightly aligned Abel, Nathan, Freedman, Wallace, Baldoni, Heath, and Sarowitz all were even before the NYT article dropped. Tucked up cozy in bed together, nice and tight.

Wow, just wow. So anyways, what are your thoughts on Ari making a podcast episode disappear?

I think it's funny that you have nothing at all to say on something that is directly relevant one of the lawsuits this whole thread is based on (the one actually referenced in the thread title) and want to redirect to an internet rumor about whether or not Ari Emanuel got Freakonomics to take down a podcast, something that may have happened, I don't know, but has no bearing whatsoever on the lawsuits. I don't care about Ari Emanuel.

NP and it doesnt matter to me so much that the Freakonomics podcaster somehow lost the ability to post the video of the interview. Just this one interview.
Because the audio is still available out there to grab.
And in it, Ari not only attempts to humiliate HB by calling him “Baloney—Baldoni—whatever” (which is strange to refer to a client of 5+ years in your own prestigious management firm that way) but he then gleefully brags that he fired JB simply because he is “ride or die” for RR and BL. I’d say that’s a pretty strong statement supporting damages incurred to/career opportunities lost by JB as a result of BL’s SH claim.

I totally agree. Ari should have kept his mouth shut. They are all so arrogant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:To PP, look, I appreciate your friends at DWT are being paid a pile of $ to litigate this case- good old media liability coverage kicking in and NYT has tons of it- but that doesn’t mean Freedman’s doing a bad job and it doesn’t mean the NYT will prevail

Freedman's doing great PR-wise.

And regarding the Lively case, he's maneuvering well. I think it's somewhat evenly matched there at this point, but Freedman certainly isn't doing a bad job on that front.

I think Freedman is completely out over his skis in the defamation case against NYT and that the lawsuit was a bit of a stunt (which, again, from a PR perspective was very effective) and is unlikely to get much further than this.

I don't know anyone at Davis Wright. I wish I knew Kate Bolger, she's a great attorney!

And how would you know that if you don’t know anything about her or the firm?

Ugh, are you not familiar with other people in your industry who do good work? Lawyers are also like academics in that a lot of their work is published and read by others in the industry even if you have no connection to the thing they are working on or their organization.

Do you really find it surprising that the NYT's 1st Amendment lawyer would be well known and respected?

You can’t answer the question? What industry do you work in? Bc no, most lawyers - even lawyers working around media- aren’t going to know DWT or Bolger. You’re an insider, but sure, keep lying. Fwiw, I am as well.

I don’t think she is an insider, she got their names off the brief.

You might be right. It’s just so preposterous, I feel the need to argue over it. So maybe she’s not an actual legal insider, but shes pro Blake for reasons that don’t make sense other than her having some personal bias.

I’m not pro Blake but that’s her prerogative. Yes, her post are partisan but most on this thread are, one side or the other.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYT has filed a motion to dismiss, the motion and some of the attachments (some interesting info there) are available on court listener already: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69510553/106/lively-v-wayfarer-studios-llc/

My favorite quote so far: "Throughout their blunderbuss complaint, the Wayfarer Parties seek to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively."

Blunderbuss. Perfect. Underused. Adding it to the arsenal.

Another great quote:

In fact, in this way, the Wayfarer Parties’ FAC is like that in Komatsu, which the court dismissed in part because the complaints’ length and “tangents” “make it difficult to understand exactly how the facts alleged provide a basis for Plaintiff’s claims—or which facts support which allegations—causing significant prejudice to Defendants who must sift through hundreds of pages ... to fully ascertain the nature of the charges against them.”

It's honestly a relief to see someone correctly describing that Wayfarer complaint as the meandering, publicity-focused mess it is. I've been waiting for this.

Hilarious coming from the same NYT that claimed they they sifted through thousands of pages of text messages. Now a few hundred pages of a complaint is too long? Their lawyers are almost as bad as Lively’s. The judge will be sick of them pretty quick.

Exactly. Their lawyers are good legal technocrats, not true trial attorneys.

Yes, everyone knows judges are swayed by 200 pages of blurry, irrelevant text messages as opposed to a concise, technically excellent motion based on relevant precedent, logical arguments, and only the salient facts. I'm sure Liman is angrily throwing Bolger's motion at the wall right now and yelling at clerks, "not heavy enough! Where's all the extraneous and contradictory detail?! Nothing in here for TMZ to quote at all! Damn technocrats have no idea what they're doing!"

Of course the judge isnt saying that, but you and I both know this case has a decent chance of getting to trial if the P’s want it to.

And you obviously have a DWT connection but I’ll just say, we shall see. I’d hire DWT on appeal, not for a case to go to trial. Their trial experience is weak.

No, she doesn’t have a connection to DWT nor is she a litigator, she is just a big fan of Blake.

I'm the PP and I don't care about Blake Lively and the only think I've ever seen her in is Gossip Girl, which I only watched two seasons of before getting bored.

I think it's interesting that rather than engage on the legal arguments, some of you always go to "you must work for this law firm" or "you are a Blake Lively fan." If you want to spar over the cases, great! Happy to engage. I don't get the point of accusing everyone of being biased because... duh, everyone is biased. But that doesn't mean we can't discuss the merits of the cases. I admit I'm biased in that I believe in very strong first amendment protections for journalists and I prefer for cases to be litigated in court based on laws and precedent rather than in the court of public opinion. That doesn't mean I'm incapable of acknowledging Freedman is very skilled at the way he litigates and it's working to some extent, or that I don't think there's any situation where a journalist should lose a defamation case. I'm more open minded than you give me credit for. But you have to *make the argument.*

Just dismissing me as biased is boring. I daresay it's as dull as Blake Lively's film oeuvre, which is pretty dull from what I can tell.

All of this may be true, but I recognize from both your writing style and love of repetition that you have written countless, and I truly mean countless, posts supporting Blake’s allegations. You often claim to not “like Blake” buthave page after page after page of posts here suppprting her allegations. Which is perfectly fine, but you should just acknowledge it.

Your legal analysis strikes me as quite simplistic and often erroneous. For exanple, you keep asserting there is a default choice of law. There is no such thing in federal court where the parties are from different states. The test, under NY state law, is what state has the biggest interest in the case. The NY Times claims that by filing in a federal court that is physically located in NY state sthe Wayfarer plaintiffs believe NY to have the bigger interest in the case. This isn’t a bad argument had the Wayfarer plaintiffs been the first to file, if they truly had the choice of any federal court on the country picking NY would be significant. However, they were second to file and chose NY solely to consolidate their complaint with the complaint already filed by Blake. I believe that maybe you are a lawyer, but definitely not a litigator.

I'm the PP and I have never, not once, argued there is a "default" choice of law here. Like nothing you say here resembles anything I've ever posted.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:NYT has filed a motion to dismiss, the motion and some of the attachments (some interesting info there) are available on court listener already: https://www.courtlistener.com/docket/69510553/106/lively-v-wayfarer-studios-llc/

My favorite quote so far: "Throughout their blunderbuss complaint, the Wayfarer Parties seek to drag The Times into their larger feud with Lively."

Blunderbuss. Perfect. Underused. Adding it to the arsenal.

Another great quote:

In fact, in this way, the Wayfarer Parties’ FAC is like that in Komatsu, which the court dismissed in part because the complaints’ length and “tangents” “make it difficult to understand exactly how the facts alleged provide a basis for Plaintiff’s claims—or which facts support which allegations—causing significant prejudice to Defendants who must sift through hundreds of pages ... to fully ascertain the nature of the charges against them.”

It's honestly a relief to see someone correctly describing that Wayfarer complaint as the meandering, publicity-focused mess it is. I've been waiting for this.

Hilarious coming from the same NYT that claimed they they sifted through thousands of pages of text messages. Now a few hundred pages of a complaint is too long? Their lawyers are almost as bad as Lively’s. The judge will be sick of them pretty quick.

Ummm … you realize that the drafting of a coherent complaint and doing journalism are two completely different things, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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It’s not even really a “setback.” The jr associates here are acting like getting your discovery narrowed by the judge is some kind of disaster. The whole point was to freak out the other side with a broad request.

I don't think it's a disaster, but I think their subpoena was pointless and time wasting. I don't think it freaked the other side out at all. At most I can see the strategy was to ask for a very broad subpoena that any defendant would absolutely move to quash so they could get in a few silly jabs in the press about Justin and Wayfarer not wanting to show the "receipts" which is just not a strategy I respect. The whole point was they weren't asking for "the receipts" but a bunch of irrelevant, private information.

And yet there is nothing to indicate implementation of any plan ever! The most controversial language was Nathan and Abel agreeing that they were astonished that they didn’t have to act against Lively because of her own goals, and they agreed it was “sad” but “don’t like be a c-.”

"We are crushing on it reddit thanks to Jed" was a pretty good indicator. Baldoni quizzing them about bots and them saying that's not us is a good indicator that there was a paid astroturfing plan in motion that he didn't want to look obvious. I can't buy that they had this whole plan developed, things happened according to the plan, they discussed how they were crushing it, but then claim it actually all was organic. Perhaps the jury will disagree with me, but I think there's enough there for her claims to survive to trial. I'm not saying Lively is likeable. Indeed she had issues and part of their plan was leveraging her own past, real, issues and interviews to destroy her credibility in case her SH complaints should come to life.

Wondering if someone could explain astroturfing and what is legal and illegal? There was just an article that apparently Blake has purchased hundreds of thousands of fake Instagram followers to stop her very obvious drop in followers. I imagine that’s perfectly legal, but it is definitely deceptive to the public.

Is anything Jed is doing legal? Or we think everything is illegal?

PP. To my understanding astroturfing isn't illegal. I would argue it's protected under the first amendment. It's just speech saying someone sucks. You're just having someone else say it instead of saying it directly. It is deceptive and unethical. In order for it to be unlawful and actionable, IMO you need something more.

Astroturfing could be unlawful if it includes defamation, the planting of false statements of fact. As long as this campaign stuck to opinions and true facts, that's not unlawful. If they asked Flaa, or even paid her, to post the interview, since the interview is real, that wouldn't be unlawful, nor would it be unlawful, IMO, to hire people to upvote it on reddit and post comments that Blake sounds like a B.

Tortious interference in a business could be another one. Say you own a restaurant and your competitor hires people to post Yelp opinions that say your food sucks and the staff is rude. Those are opinions, but this is probably unlawful and you could sue.

And then there's her claim of retaliation, which is pretty novel and interesting. The astroturfing itself is not illegal, but it becomes illegal if she can prove it was done as retaliation for reporting sexual harassment. Kind of like firing a person or demoting a person or changing their work schedule is not illegal, but it becomes so when it's done in retaliation. Without this component she wouldn't have much of a case at all. If they had just had the dispute over her taking over the film, and she wanted to ice him out of the premiere, and then he hired crisis PR to plant stories saying she's awful, I don't believe she'd have a cause of action.

Great analogies. I actually think it underlines the uphill battle lively is facing. Firing someone for retaliation is illegal but firing someone for cause is not. Prior harassment complaints does not give someone a free pass from ever being disciplined or fired. So not only does lively need to prove there was a smear campaign, but she also needs to prove it was in response to the harassment. Given how poorly she treated baldoni and defamed him, it will be pretty easy for him to say his actions, which they can agree or disagree was a smear campaign, was in reaction to her smear campaign.

+1. I believe Lively has a strong retaliation claim but I also think your post is a strong defense. That’s why this case is so interesting.