Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not a lawyer but I think BL using AB 933 will fail because of the “without malice” clause (and no the musings of Jen Abel are not enough to give her cover). I think you could argue BL’s 17 pt complaint was protected under AB 933 but 1. JB did not sue her after that, he conceded to her demands, moved on and there were no further incidents; 2. Malice is all over everything else that happened after her 17 pt complaint (turning the cast against him, icing him out from the premiere, the salacious nyt article with misrepresented facts). BL can’t argue the nyt article was without actual malice b/c 1. She had already raised her SH concerns months and months prior (AB 933 is there so victims feel comfortable speaking out, but she already had); 2. She threatened the gloves would come off if he didn’t release her statement and then the gloves came off. Malice plain and simple.

You are twisting what "without malice" means here.

It doesn't mean that an accuser makes the allegation while maintaining love and respect for the person they are accusing. They are allowed to dislike the person they are accusing, and in fact it makes sense that they would dislike this person if their allegations are true. Malice doesn't just mean "dislike" or "wishes ill."

Malice means lying or acting with "reckless disregard" for the truth. You can really dislike someone and want them to be punished, and still not act with malice, as long as you are truthful and say only things you can reasonably believe to be true. So evidence that BL unfollowed him on social media, or took over editing, or turned the rest of the cast against him is not evidence of malice. As long as she believe her accusations to be true, and had some reasonable basis for that, she acted without malice.

You’re using the definition of malice as it’s applied in defamation. WRT to AB 933, you have to use the definition of malice as applied in sexual harassment.

I'm using the legal definition of malice, and also how it's defined in AB 933. The PP was using a layman's definition of the word, how you might use it as a descriptor in a story.

You might think it was "malicious" for Lively to unfollow Baldoni or take over the editing process of the movie, but it was not done "with malice" unless Lively was knowingly lying about her allegations. The legal definitions of these words is very precise, and if it does make it to a jury, they would be carefully instructed on what they need to find in order to conclude Lively acted "with malice." Just disliking Baldoni and wanting to punish him would not be enough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Somebody mentioned the Ask Two Lawyers podcast previously. I went back to listen to their podcast on the protective order and I cannot believe that they both concluded that Baldoni “mostly won” that issue since he “got almost everything they wanted” and that the Lively side must “feel like it didn’t win.” And that “Baldoni won more than he lost.” That’s bananas when you look at the protective orders both sides submitted and argued for. Baldoni wanted a meet and confer before anything could be submitted as AEO, and the judge did mot agree.

I don’t think they read the underlying papers, and don’t think they read the order carefully. Or, they just want clicks and have decided to make their opinion pro Baldoni no matter the actual substance.

I’m not familiar with their podcast but their comments on the PO are just so distanced from how an objective person would read the protective order outcome that it makes me question their substance generally. Their legal judgements may be okay but the way they are shading it, at least re the PO, is so far off that it’s actually misleading.

Well their new video on Blake's dismissal says she's more then likely going to get dismissed. Good!!!

[Anonymous]

So that’s 5 MTD that Lyman is deciding on:

NYT, LS, RR, BL and Wallace.

And a few defendants responses to those MTD.

It’s going to be a few interesting weeks ahead, but my guess is that maybe one or two cases will succeed on the motions. The others…get ready for discovery!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So that’s 5 MTD that Lyman is deciding on:

NYT, LS, RR, BL and Wallace.

And a few defendants responses to those MTD.

It’s going to be a few interesting weeks ahead, but my guess is that maybe one or two cases will succeed on the motions. The others…get ready for discovery!

Well Blake’s lawsuit is definitely still going on so discovery will definitely still be ongoing

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

There’s nothing to follow. The public at large knows these two scammers tried to destroy and railroad an innocent man. There is nothing they can do to “prevail.” At this point the so called experts around them are just milking them. Oh well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

Lol tons of people are still following the case.

[Anonymous]

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.

Also, are you the angry pro-Baldoni lawyer who keeps accusing other people of not being lawyers or alternatively being insiders, and is themselves, by hammer own admission (see above, which I ran across trying to remember what folks had said about the PO), some sort of insider? What sort of “insider” are you, anyway?

[Anonymous]

Hammer = their, lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

Lol tons of people are still following the case.

Yes, lots of people still following, but most people have made up their minds and it overall doesn’t look good for Blake and Ryan. I think PP’s point was that no matter what happens in the actual legal cases the damage to their reputations is significant and long lasting.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

Lol tons of people are still following the case.

Yes, lots of people still following, but most people have made up their minds and it overall doesn’t look good for Blake and Ryan. I think PP’s point was that no matter what happens in the actual legal cases the damage to their reputations is significant and long lasting.

This is true for both sides, though. And likely much worse for Baldoni and Wayfarer, who most people were unaware of before this whole thing blew up. He will be defined by this, whereas Ryan and Blake have a longer history in the public eye and this will become part of a larger story, but not the whole story. There are plenty of wealthy, famous people who have some black eye incident in their history, but who continue to have profitable careers. And Blake and Ryan aren't accused of a crime, but merely of being bullying and greedy. Well, so have many others. I think Ryan, in particular, will be totally fine in the end. People are more forgiving of men with these traits. Blake will be punished more but will probably still be able to stay in the public eye in some capacity.

Baldoni is stuck though. He can't return to his male feminist brand because the people who would have been most receptive to that -- feminist women actively seeking allies -- are also the group most likely to believe Blake. Even Liz Plank abandoned him. He could pivot to sort of a men's rights angle, especially with support of people like Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, but he will lose even people who are not hard core feminists but how generally find the alt-right and Trump supporters to be unsavory (which is most of Hollywood). He isn't going to find traction as an actor, professionally, that ship had sailed before this whole thing started -- maybe IEWU could have restarted his acting career, but not after all this. Major studios will not want to partner with Wayfarer after this -- even if Baldoni were cleared of the SH charges, it appears that the production was unprofessionally run and that they may have exposed themselves to these problems with poor leadership and a disorganized set.

I think it's more likely that Lively will win on the legal front than Baldoni (still a decent chance they just settle before trial, IMO, and no one is a clear winner) and I think they'll all suffer professionally and in the public eye, but that Baldoni will lose more than Lively/Reynolds do. The biggest winners will likely be Sarowitz and Reynolds, who will both stay rich and profitable with less impact on their reputations than Baldoni and Reynolds.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

Lol tons of people are still following the case.

Yes, lots of people still following, but most people have made up their minds and it overall doesn’t look good for Blake and Ryan. I think PP’s point was that no matter what happens in the actual legal cases the damage to their reputations is significant and long lasting.

This is true for both sides, though. And likely much worse for Baldoni and Wayfarer, who most people were unaware of before this whole thing blew up. He will be defined by this, whereas Ryan and Blake have a longer history in the public eye and this will become part of a larger story, but not the whole story. There are plenty of wealthy, famous people who have some black eye incident in their history, but who continue to have profitable careers. And Blake and Ryan aren't accused of a crime, but merely of being bullying and greedy. Well, so have many others. I think Ryan, in particular, will be totally fine in the end. People are more forgiving of men with these traits. Blake will be punished more but will probably still be able to stay in the public eye in some capacity.

Baldoni is stuck though. He can't return to his male feminist brand because the people who would have been most receptive to that -- feminist women actively seeking allies -- are also the group most likely to believe Blake. Even Liz Plank abandoned him. He could pivot to sort of a men's rights angle, especially with support of people like Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, but he will lose even people who are not hard core feminists but how generally find the alt-right and Trump supporters to be unsavory (which is most of Hollywood). He isn't going to find traction as an actor, professionally, that ship had sailed before this whole thing started -- maybe IEWU could have restarted his acting career, but not after all this. Major studios will not want to partner with Wayfarer after this -- even if Baldoni were cleared of the SH charges, it appears that the production was unprofessionally run and that they may have exposed themselves to these problems with poor leadership and a disorganized set.

I think it's more likely that Lively will win on the legal front than Baldoni (still a decent chance they just settle before trial, IMO, and no one is a clear winner) and I think they'll all suffer professionally and in the public eye, but that Baldoni will lose more than Lively/Reynolds do. The biggest winners will likely be Sarowitz and Reynolds, who will both stay rich and profitable with less impact on their reputations than Baldoni and Reynolds.

The above sounds about right to me, and I prefer it to the odd “Lively will be decimated forever” catastrophizing that some Baldoni supporter engages in regularly, as though if said enough here Lively’s ruination will surely be spoken into existence ha.

I think Wayfarer’s live action PAC Man movie is still on hold — maybe a good thing ha. One thing I could see happening is that certain people could decide to ask to work with him or start projects - Scarlet Johansen, ex to Reynolds, just finished her directorial debut with Wayfarer and could conceivably start another project with them if that was a good experience, or America Ferreira his ex costar from the Jane show who has been supportive. If his friends come back and do projects that could be meaningful. At the same time, that would certainly hurt his (cough) $400M damages claim, so maybe he prefers to sit back and vacation in Hawaii for a while.

Judge Liman denied Sloane’s motion to stay discovery and will let it proceed against Sloane and PR co, saying that Sloan can file a motion for a protective order for any discovery sought that goes outside what’s permitted. I think this means (1) maybe the protective order should cover everything (which I think wasn’t yet in place when judge decided NYT’s stay); (2) issues of privilege in NYT’s discovery are more complex than Sloane’s; and MAYBE (3) NYT may have an overall better chance of winning on MTD than NYT (or at least Lyman thought NYT’s chances were decent a week ago when he issued the NYT stay).

Also, Baldoni and other Wayfarer parties (besides Wallace) filed answers late yesterday.

[Anonymous]

Liman cited his own prior order in denying the stay -- where he had said that stays were justified for good cause, but not just where the merits of arguments on a MTD were good (as they had been in that case but problems might be cured by complaint amendment) or where Ps docs requests were overbroad but could be narrowed through meet and confer or by further PO.

https://trellis.law/opinion/district/robbins-v-candy-digital-inc/371475886

[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.

Also, are you the angry pro-Baldoni lawyer who keeps accusing other people of not being lawyers or alternatively being insiders, and is themselves, by hammer own admission (see above, which I ran across trying to remember what folks had said about the PO), some sort of insider? What sort of “insider” are you, anyway?

Nope, I'm the other pro-Baldoni supporter (or at least one of them) who asserts that there are Blake insiders on this thread. There is just no way that anyone other than someone who is supremely vested in this case would point to this level of case law to counter each Baldoni support thread. How are you billing your hours? Certainly if a law firm allows you this much time on this case, supporting Blake at every turn, they are getting something out of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Blake and Ryan’s careers are over. They are detestable pathological lying schemers. Everyone sees their true colors.

Yeah no one is following this case anymore. Lively has all but lost.

Lol tons of people are still following the case.

Yes, lots of people still following, but most people have made up their minds and it overall doesn’t look good for Blake and Ryan. I think PP’s point was that no matter what happens in the actual legal cases the damage to their reputations is significant and long lasting.

This is true for both sides, though. And likely much worse for Baldoni and Wayfarer, who most people were unaware of before this whole thing blew up. He will be defined by this, whereas Ryan and Blake have a longer history in the public eye and this will become part of a larger story, but not the whole story. There are plenty of wealthy, famous people who have some black eye incident in their history, but who continue to have profitable careers. And Blake and Ryan aren't accused of a crime, but merely of being bullying and greedy. Well, so have many others. I think Ryan, in particular, will be totally fine in the end. People are more forgiving of men with these traits. Blake will be punished more but will probably still be able to stay in the public eye in some capacity.

Baldoni is stuck though. He can't return to his male feminist brand because the people who would have been most receptive to that -- feminist women actively seeking allies -- are also the group most likely to believe Blake. Even Liz Plank abandoned him. He could pivot to sort of a men's rights angle, especially with support of people like Candace Owens and Megyn Kelly, but he will lose even people who are not hard core feminists but how generally find the alt-right and Trump supporters to be unsavory (which is most of Hollywood). He isn't going to find traction as an actor, professionally, that ship had sailed before this whole thing started -- maybe IEWU could have restarted his acting career, but not after all this. Major studios will not want to partner with Wayfarer after this -- even if Baldoni were cleared of the SH charges, it appears that the production was unprofessionally run and that they may have exposed themselves to these problems with poor leadership and a disorganized set.

I think it's more likely that Lively will win on the legal front than Baldoni (still a decent chance they just settle before trial, IMO, and no one is a clear winner) and I think they'll all suffer professionally and in the public eye, but that Baldoni will lose more than Lively/Reynolds do. The biggest winners will likely be Sarowitz and Reynolds, who will both stay rich and profitable with less impact on their reputations than Baldoni and Reynolds.

This seems truly delusional to me. Blake and Ryan are likely never to recover what they had before. If people just will not stand for buying their products and seeing them in movies, their value is going to decline. Will they be ostracized and laughed out of Hollywood? No I don’t think anyone is saying that. But I just don’t think they’re going to be the beloved top celebrity couple they once were and I do think their brands are going to take a major hit.

It’s kind of weird to say that Baldoni is in a worse position, he flat out just has less to lose. His acting career might take a hit, but considering he got to age 41 without really breaking out, I doubt he was banking on that anyway. He didn’t even want to do the lead in the movie,, Colleen Hoover pressured him too. He prefers directing and producing, and I don’t see why he wouldn’t be able to continue to do that.