Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a super dumb question that will make all the lawyers bristle: what determines whether a judge or jury decides this? It seems like Baldoni would want a jury trial.

If he wants a jury trial he can have one -- you have a right to one as long as the claimed amount is above a certain level, and this case certainly meets that threshold.

Agree that Baldoni will insist on a jury trial. I could see why Lively would want a bench trial but it's not going to happen.

You didn’t answer the question. The judge decides on whether there are issues of fact for a trial (jury or judge).

the jury plays no role until the trial stage. the judge decides pretrial motions like motions to dismiss and for summary judgement. The purpose of those motions is to determine whether the complaint alleged plausible legal claims (motion to dismiss) and whether there are disputed issues of fact (motion for summary judgment) sufficient to allow the case to get to the jury trial.

I guess my question is if Baldoni could lose (or Blake win) without it going the jury.

So, in a case where they are the plaintiff, the plaintiff wants the case to proceed to a trial and the defendant wants it to be dismissed. The defendant makes legal arguments that amount to something like "as a matter of law, even if everything the plaintiff says is true, that doesn't meet the legal definition of [sexual harassment, defamation, extortion, etc]."

The jury is generally the "finder of fact" who decides whether those facts are true. You can also have a bench trial where the judge is the fact finder, but in this case, it's safe to assume if there is a trial it will be in front of a jury.

The defendant in a claim doesn't want it to get to the jury. They want the judge to say "yeah, plaintiff no case even if the facts alleged are true. There is no need to proceed to a trial to determine whether the facts are true or not true."

So, when it comes to Blake's cases for sexual harassment and retaliation, she wants to it to go the jury. That's the only way she can win. The Wayfarer parties want them dismissed by the judge.

And then as to Baldoni's cases for defamation and extortion, he wants those to proceed to the jury, while the Lively side wants them to be dismissed by the judge.

Keep in mind there's a ton of plaintiffs and defendants in each case. Wayfarer has mostly lumped them all together as the "Lively parties" which is where some defendants are arguing it is "impermissible group pleading," ie, you might have an arguable claim against Leslie Sloane/Vision PR or NYT for defamation, but not for extortion (Baldoni doesn't allege that those entities have threatened him to gain something, but rather, lumps them in with his claim against Lively).

Most recently, Leslie Sloane/Vision PR and the NYT have filed motions to dismiss, arguing that the particular claims against them should be dismissed, as a matter of law. They have a very strong argument as to the extortion, but they might have made one or two statements that could be considered defamation. So, the judge might dismiss extortion but let the defamation claims proceed for now to discovery, and there will still be further opportunity for plaintiffs to submit a motion for summary judgment to once again request the claims be dismissed prior to a trial because they do not meet the legal definition.

It's basically going to be lots of partial wins and losses for both sides. Some parts will be dismissed and some won't. Most of the motions won't be granted in full.

A defendant can "win" without a trial if all of the claims against them get dismissed prior to trial. A plaintiff can "win" if the case proceeds to trial and they win at trial.

Dp. Good explanation. What do you think will happen?

PP. I think Lively has a better chance of getting to trial against Baldoni. That's not because I think her case is necessarily better, but because she's crafted a good narrative that she experienced sexual harassment, reported it, and that Baldoni and Wayfarer engaged in a retaliatory campaign against her because of it. That doesn't mean I think that's what happened, but that I feel they've plead a reasonable legal argument that will proceed to discovery and a trial. All of her examples are very fact intensive little issues that need to be examined carefully. These are the kinds of things we in this thread go over ad nauseum... what exactly happened during the infamous dance scene and birth scene, did he try to push nudity without the IC, did he actually hire bots to bash her or was it organic, and if he did, was it because she complained about SH or because she tried to take over his movie? These are probably factual considerations, which would go a jury. Once it gets to a jury, I guess anything can happen, but I tend to think there's enough holes in Lively stories and reasonable explanations on his side (that the friend playing the OB was a professional actor, that he said "it smells good" as a response to her spray tan comment, etc... these are things a jury would decide) that she would not prevail at trial. She has to prove so much: that what she did was considered SH, that he acted according to that understanding, that he engaged Nathan/Abel/Wallace to plant stories, that he did so in retaliation for reporting SH and not for other reasons, and that he caused damages that weren't a result of her own reputation and PR mishaps.

Baldoni's claims could go to trial but are more likely to be dismissed. I don't necessarily think that's bad for him. I think a lot of his lawsuits were more about getting his story out there in the press. I expect most of the claims against Sloan and NYT to be dismissed, but there's a couple of borderline claims that could go further (the reporter who implied Sloan called him a sexual predator, NYT's reporting that is not directly lifted from the CRD complaint in which they characterize it as a "smear campaign."). His claim against Blake for defamation and extortion probably proceed for a while, but could be dismissed before trial.

Wallace and Lively... his defamation claim against her might have legs. He's arguing she defamed him by publishing her CRD complaint with him as a defendant, knowing she had no claim against him and then going on not to name him as a defendant when she filed the actual suit. Her claims against him are harder, because she has no evidence that his astroturfing (I am assuming it occurred, given references to "thanks to Jed's team" in the texts, but this is also a factual matter for a jury to determine) was in retaliation for alleged sexual harassment that he wouldn't have been involved with and there's no proof he knew about... so that probably goes on for a while in discovery to see if Lively can allege those facts. I'm guessing Wallace was smarter than Nathan and Abel and didn't put to much damning stuff in writing, but we'll see.

It's just going to zig and zag and there will be lots of bad press about both sides throughout as discovery goes on and things leak...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the MTD and I have some thoughts/questions. It says the article was based on the Cal complaint, but I thought I remember the article or maybe twohey saying later that they reviewed thousands of docs/texts. Also, I recall that the article wasn’t just reporting on the complaint. For instance, I recall that it mentioned kjersti flaa and seemed to heavily imply she was somehow involved. The MTD also says that the only alleged defamatory statement was the “smear campaign” language, but didn’t wayfarer’s complaint characterize the whole article as defamatory? Also, calling the “smear campaign” phrase opinion just comes across as too cute to me.

This whole thing, the article and now the MTD, makes me feel really jaded about journalism and the NYT. It seems to me like they thought they had this great metoo story, and from the reader’s perspective, I feel like we were meant to assume it was fully vetted and fairly presented. And now the MTD is presenting it like they had no responsibility to do that vetting because they were just reporting on a filing. Maybe that’s right under the law, but I don’t feel like that’s how the NYT presented its story. In my opinion, it wasn’t an AP News style factual reporting on a legal filing, it was an expose style article with a lot more detail and editorializing than what was just in the filing.

Your instincts are spot on. The lawyer(s) who advised on pre publication were likely different than the ones arguing this case now that it’s in court (and trying to pick up the pieces of this journalistic snafu) so that explains the disconnect between the article and the arguments in the MTD.

If it gets there, I suspect a jury would agree with you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW I fully believe Lively uses the word "yummy" all the time, and also that it's annoying AF.

Middle aged millennial women who can’t come to grips with their age force the lgirlie” baby talk. See also 50 yo gen X Ryan and his immature catty effeminate sarcasm he thinks is funny…over 25 years after he was doing it on 2 guys a girl and a pizza place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a super dumb question that will make all the lawyers bristle: what determines whether a judge or jury decides this? It seems like Baldoni would want a jury trial.

If he wants a jury trial he can have one -- you have a right to one as long as the claimed amount is above a certain level, and this case certainly meets that threshold.

Agree that Baldoni will insist on a jury trial. I could see why Lively would want a bench trial but it's not going to happen.

You didn’t answer the question. The judge decides on whether there are issues of fact for a trial (jury or judge).

the jury plays no role until the trial stage. the judge decides pretrial motions like motions to dismiss and for summary judgement. The purpose of those motions is to determine whether the complaint alleged plausible legal claims (motion to dismiss) and whether there are disputed issues of fact (motion for summary judgment) sufficient to allow the case to get to the jury trial.

I guess my question is if Baldoni could lose (or Blake win) without it going the jury.

So, in a case where they are the plaintiff, the plaintiff wants the case to proceed to a trial and the defendant wants it to be dismissed. The defendant makes legal arguments that amount to something like "as a matter of law, even if everything the plaintiff says is true, that doesn't meet the legal definition of [sexual harassment, defamation, extortion, etc]."

The jury is generally the "finder of fact" who decides whether those facts are true. You can also have a bench trial where the judge is the fact finder, but in this case, it's safe to assume if there is a trial it will be in front of a jury.

The defendant in a claim doesn't want it to get to the jury. They want the judge to say "yeah, plaintiff no case even if the facts alleged are true. There is no need to proceed to a trial to determine whether the facts are true or not true."

So, when it comes to Blake's cases for sexual harassment and retaliation, she wants to it to go the jury. That's the only way she can win. The Wayfarer parties want them dismissed by the judge.

And then as to Baldoni's cases for defamation and extortion, he wants those to proceed to the jury, while the Lively side wants them to be dismissed by the judge.

Keep in mind there's a ton of plaintiffs and defendants in each case. Wayfarer has mostly lumped them all together as the "Lively parties" which is where some defendants are arguing it is "impermissible group pleading," ie, you might have an arguable claim against Leslie Sloane/Vision PR or NYT for defamation, but not for extortion (Baldoni doesn't allege that those entities have threatened him to gain something, but rather, lumps them in with his claim against Lively).

Most recently, Leslie Sloane/Vision PR and the NYT have filed motions to dismiss, arguing that the particular claims against them should be dismissed, as a matter of law. They have a very strong argument as to the extortion, but they might have made one or two statements that could be considered defamation. So, the judge might dismiss extortion but let the defamation claims proceed for now to discovery, and there will still be further opportunity for plaintiffs to submit a motion for summary judgment to once again request the claims be dismissed prior to a trial because they do not meet the legal definition.

It's basically going to be lots of partial wins and losses for both sides. Some parts will be dismissed and some won't. Most of the motions won't be granted in full.

A defendant can "win" without a trial if all of the claims against them get dismissed prior to trial. A plaintiff can "win" if the case proceeds to trial and they win at trial.

Dp. Good explanation. What do you think will happen?

PP. I think Lively has a better chance of getting to trial against Baldoni. That's not because I think her case is necessarily better, but because she's crafted a good narrative that she experienced sexual harassment, reported it, and that Baldoni and Wayfarer engaged in a retaliatory campaign against her because of it. That doesn't mean I think that's what happened, but that I feel they've plead a reasonable legal argument that will proceed to discovery and a trial. All of her examples are very fact intensive little issues that need to be examined carefully. These are the kinds of things we in this thread go over ad nauseum... what exactly happened during the infamous dance scene and birth scene, did he try to push nudity without the IC, did he actually hire bots to bash her or was it organic, and if he did, was it because she complained about SH or because she tried to take over his movie? These are probably factual considerations, which would go a jury. Once it gets to a jury, I guess anything can happen, but I tend to think there's enough holes in Lively stories and reasonable explanations on his side (that the friend playing the OB was a professional actor, that he said "it smells good" as a response to her spray tan comment, etc... these are things a jury would decide) that she would not prevail at trial. She has to prove so much: that what she did was considered SH, that he acted according to that understanding, that he engaged Nathan/Abel/Wallace to plant stories, that he did so in retaliation for reporting SH and not for other reasons, and that he caused damages that weren't a result of her own reputation and PR mishaps.

Baldoni's claims could go to trial but are more likely to be dismissed. I don't necessarily think that's bad for him. I think a lot of his lawsuits were more about getting his story out there in the press. I expect most of the claims against Sloan and NYT to be dismissed, but there's a couple of borderline claims that could go further (the reporter who implied Sloan called him a sexual predator, NYT's reporting that is not directly lifted from the CRD complaint in which they characterize it as a "smear campaign."). His claim against Blake for defamation and extortion probably proceed for a while, but could be dismissed before trial.

Wallace and Lively... his defamation claim against her might have legs. He's arguing she defamed him by publishing her CRD complaint with him as a defendant, knowing she had no claim against him and then going on not to name him as a defendant when she filed the actual suit. Her claims against him are harder, because she has no evidence that his astroturfing (I am assuming it occurred, given references to "thanks to Jed's team" in the texts, but this is also a factual matter for a jury to determine) was in retaliation for alleged sexual harassment that he wouldn't have been involved with and there's no proof he knew about... so that probably goes on for a while in discovery to see if Lively can allege those facts. I'm guessing Wallace was smarter than Nathan and Abel and didn't put to much damning stuff in writing, but we'll see.

It's just going to zig and zag and there will be lots of bad press about both sides throughout as discovery goes on and things leak...

Interesting. I mostly agree with you although if I had to call it, I think Livelys case has a higher chance of being dismissed on SJ motion. And Baldonis case has a better chance of surviving and getting to a jury. But it will be close either way, and they will likely settle at some point. Although the NYT typically claims not to settle so I’m fascinated at how that may play out.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:FWIW I fully believe Lively uses the word "yummy" all the time, and also that it's annoying AF.

Middle aged millennial women who can’t come to grips with their age force the lgirlie” baby talk. See also 50 yo gen X Ryan and his immature catty effeminate sarcasm he thinks is funny…over 25 years after he was doing it on 2 guys a girl and a pizza place.

I don’t think Ryan is doing a shtick, he’s always been zesty as hell. Everything about his mannerisms and speak is zesty. Would you put it past Blake to agree to be his beard? I wouldn’t. She wanted to be rich and famous by any means necessary.

[Anonymous]

I don’t think it’s that crazy for anyone with a two year old to be using the word yummy. Though I’m not crazy about it either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the MTD and I have some thoughts/questions. It says the article was based on the Cal complaint, but I thought I remember the article or maybe twohey saying later that they reviewed thousands of docs/texts. Also, I recall that the article wasn’t just reporting on the complaint. For instance, I recall that it mentioned kjersti flaa and seemed to heavily imply she was somehow involved. The MTD also says that the only alleged defamatory statement was the “smear campaign” language, but didn’t wayfarer’s complaint characterize the whole article as defamatory? Also, calling the “smear campaign” phrase opinion just comes across as too cute to me.

This whole thing, the article and now the MTD, makes me feel really jaded about journalism and the NYT. It seems to me like they thought they had this great metoo story, and from the reader’s perspective, I feel like we were meant to assume it was fully vetted and fairly presented. And now the MTD is presenting it like they had no responsibility to do that vetting because they were just reporting on a filing. Maybe that’s right under the law, but I don’t feel like that’s how the NYT presented its story. In my opinion, it wasn’t an AP News style factual reporting on a legal filing, it was an expose style article with a lot more detail and editorializing than what was just in the filing.

Agree, I am the lawyer who said 50 50 chance on MTD for this reason.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I read the MTD and I have some thoughts/questions. It says the article was based on the Cal complaint, but I thought I remember the article or maybe twohey saying later that they reviewed thousands of docs/texts. Also, I recall that the article wasn’t just reporting on the complaint. For instance, I recall that it mentioned kjersti flaa and seemed to heavily imply she was somehow involved. The MTD also says that the only alleged defamatory statement was the “smear campaign” language, but didn’t wayfarer’s complaint characterize the whole article as defamatory? Also, calling the “smear campaign” phrase opinion just comes across as too cute to me.

This whole thing, the article and now the MTD, makes me feel really jaded about journalism and the NYT. It seems to me like they thought they had this great metoo story, and from the reader’s perspective, I feel like we were meant to assume it was fully vetted and fairly presented. And now the MTD is presenting it like they had no responsibility to do that vetting because they were just reporting on a filing. Maybe that’s right under the law, but I don’t feel like that’s how the NYT presented its story. In my opinion, it wasn’t an AP News style factual reporting on a legal filing, it was an expose style article with a lot more detail and editorializing than what was just in the filing.

Agree, I am the lawyer who said 50 50 chance on MTD for this reason.

80 (denied at least in part)/20 (granted)

Not that any of the lawyers want that, this case is a cash cow!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I read the MTD and I have some thoughts/questions. It says the article was based on the Cal complaint, but I thought I remember the article or maybe twohey saying later that they reviewed thousands of docs/texts. Also, I recall that the article wasn’t just reporting on the complaint. For instance, I recall that it mentioned kjersti flaa and seemed to heavily imply she was somehow involved. The MTD also says that the only alleged defamatory statement was the “smear campaign” language, but didn’t wayfarer’s complaint characterize the whole article as defamatory? Also, calling the “smear campaign” phrase opinion just comes across as too cute to me.

This whole thing, the article and now the MTD, makes me feel really jaded about journalism and the NYT. It seems to me like they thought they had this great metoo story, and from the reader’s perspective, I feel like we were meant to assume it was fully vetted and fairly presented. And now the MTD is presenting it like they had no responsibility to do that vetting because they were just reporting on a filing. Maybe that’s right under the law, but I don’t feel like that’s how the NYT presented its story. In my opinion, it wasn’t an AP News style factual reporting on a legal filing, it was an expose style article with a lot more detail and editorializing than what was just in the filing.

I have posted that I think most of Baldoni's claims against NYT should be dismissed, but I also think these are fair comments/analysis, and I always appreciate when the thread had this type of discussion instead of posters bickering, so thank you.

Many of these comments are addressed in the MTD which you have clearly read, so I'm not going to reiterate NYT's arguments.

But you did get me to take another look at the mentions of Flaa, and it is very interesting and kind of shady. A few pages back someone was arguing with me because I said that I thought I'd read Flaa was aligned with Depp/Heard but was misinformed... and now it's clear to me where I got that.

This is what NYT said about Flaa. From what I can tell, they aren't posting any factually untrue things, but weaving it together to imply that she was involved (which actually is a reasonably good "false light!" claim to bring us back on topic!). I think this goes to your second paragraph. So shame on me, I guess, for reading into this the way NYT insinuated without factual basis.

https://archive.is/tu6YW
Meanwhile, an online backlash against Ms. Lively was underway. It is impossible to know how much of the negative publicity was seeded by Ms. Nathan, Mr. Wallace and their team, and how much they noticed and amplified.
On Aug. 10, Kjersti Flaa, a Norwegian entertainment reporter, uploaded to YouTube a 2016 interview in which Ms. Lively snapped back when Ms. Flaa commented on her baby “bump” and remained testy for the rest of the conversation. Ms. Flaa titled it “The Blake Lively interview that made me want to quit my job,” and told The Daily Mail that “it’s time that people behaving badly in Hollywood, or anywhere else for that matter, gets called out for it.”
After publication of this article, Ms. Flaa on Sunday contacted The Times and said she had not participated in any orchestrated effort to harm Ms. Lively’s reputation. In an email, she said that she had resurfaced the 2016 interview independently this past August. “It was neither coordinated nor influenced by anyone associated with the alleged campaign,” she wrote.
It wasn’t the first time she had posted a video aligned with a client of Ms. Nathan. In 2022, in the midst of Mr. Depp’s legal battle with Ms. Heard, Ms. Flaa posted clips of her interviews with the actor, tagged #JusticeForJohnnyDepp.



Incidentally, I found another NYT article about Flaa from October 2024, at which point they may already have been in discussions with Lively, though this article doesn't seem to imply anything negative about her posting Lively's video: https://archive.is/g82fo#selection-1929.280-1949.128

[Anonymous]

Regarding Flaa, it really does look like there's no connection between her and Baldoni's team. Barring some kind of smoking gun that hasn't been unearthed yet, I think the implication that she posted the interview back in August as part of a conspiracy is dead in the water.

That's said, I will say that I have severely soured on Flaa since she posted the interview. I was fully on her side when she posted it and still think Lively's behavior was pretty abhorrent. But it's pretty obvious at this point that Flaa just rides a gravy train of attaching herself to controversial celebrity topics and then milking them. The "JusticeforJonny" thing is gross (Depp was an abuser, sorry) and Flaa is STILL milking the Lively thing, since she obviously figured out her rather minor involvement in it could become a source of income. But she's not a real journalist. I tried watching one of her videos and it's just influencer drivel. I never had a problem with her posting that video but I've lost respect for her now that I know more about her.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FWIW I fully believe Lively uses the word "yummy" all the time, and also that it's annoying AF.

Everything about her post to Michelle Tratchtenburg felt intentionally self serving to me. I have not been on social media since to see what everyone had to say, because it feels gross to acknowledge. I guess I just did though.

[Anonymous]

I can’t follow all these mud slinging but from what I gather:

— Blake was baiting Justin with sexual innuendo texts about blow jobs and coming by to see her pump her breasts

— Ryan was baiting Justin with creepy sexual innuendo texts about his anus

— Blake bragged her husband Ryan wrote a pivotal scene

— Super agent Ari publicly bullied and bragged he sacked Justin to appease Ryan and Blake (then the podcast he did this on disappeared)

— Ryan and Blake show up at SNL 50th and Ryan forced a joke into the broadcast about his wife’s allegedly traumatic sexual harassment drama

These are not serious people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I can’t follow all these mud slinging but from what I gather:

— Blake was baiting Justin with sexual innuendo texts about blow jobs and coming by to see her pump her breasts

— Ryan was baiting Justin with creepy sexual innuendo texts about his anus

— Blake bragged her husband Ryan wrote a pivotal scene

— Super agent Ari publicly bullied and bragged he sacked Justin to appease Ryan and Blake (then the podcast he did this on disappeared)

— Ryan and Blake show up at SNL 50th and Ryan forced a joke into the broadcast about his wife’s allegedly traumatic sexual harassment drama

These are not serious people.

— Unbeknownst to Taylor Swift, Blake was using her name and music to muscle and strong arm the studio and Justin (Taylor is no longer friends with Blake)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding Flaa, it really does look like there's no connection between her and Baldoni's team. Barring some kind of smoking gun that hasn't been unearthed yet, I think the implication that she posted the interview back in August as part of a conspiracy is dead in the water.

That's said, I will say that I have severely soured on Flaa since she posted the interview. I was fully on her side when she posted it and still think Lively's behavior was pretty abhorrent. But it's pretty obvious at this point that Flaa just rides a gravy train of attaching herself to controversial celebrity topics and then milking them. The "JusticeforJonny" thing is gross (Depp was an abuser, sorry) and Flaa is STILL milking the Lively thing, since she obviously figured out her rather minor involvement in it could become a source of income. But she's not a real journalist. I tried watching one of her videos and it's just influencer drivel. I never had a problem with her posting that video but I've lost respect for her now that I know more about her.

Her quality as a journalism is totally irrelevant except to point out that the criticism of Bl was organic and the NYT shit the bed when it ran this story

[Anonymous]

JournalisT