Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT - False Light claims

[Anonymous]

I’m a PP lawyer who has been defending Lively (especially on the PO issue that no one else cares about lol) and I don’t think the lawyer I’m talking to above is the other lawyer who spends time defending Lively fwiw. Different knowledge base and writing style and generally more impartial imho, comments less frequently (but wtf do I know and I could be wrong).

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:

At the moment, Lively has the stronger legal case. I think a lot of people are going to freak out when that becomes very obvious after MTDs are ruled on.

The new theory making the rounds is the judge has a conflict of interest because his brother, Doug Liman, directed an ad in which Lively appeared. I can't find a source so I don't have much information. I heard it on TikTok and when I google it, I just get links to random reddit and instagram posts which do not link to primary sources. It's apparently a 2008 political ad. I have no reason to doubt the ad exists but I don't think it's a conflict. I just wonder if that seed has been planted to explain away any MTDs that are granted.

If people blame the MTDs being granted, in whole or in part, on some perceived bias because Lively was in an ad directed by the judge's brother 20 years, they are dumb. The MTDs are strong because Baldoni's/Wayfarer's claims are weak. And Freedman knows they are weak. They were filed, quickly, as a means to get a bunch of bad PR in front of the press and to shift the narrative against Lively. Which worked. No lawyer worth their salt should be telling you otherwise. These were weak claims, plead poorly, and if any survive, it will because they kind of backed into something actionable.

But that doesn't mean Baldoni will lose the case. The real action has always been on Blake's lawsuit. He has defenses, and the lawsuit will be extremely jury-dependent because it will come down to whether or not a jury believes that Blake reasonably thought she'd been sexually harassed. Also whether Blake can convincingly argue that actions by Baldoni's PR team were retaliation for her bringing those SH claims. Notice I'm not even saying that it will come down to whether she can convince them she actually was sexually harassed. That would be enormously helpful to her but is actually not essential, as long as she can prove she had a good faith reason to believe she'd been SHed when she made her complaints.

It's sometimes painful for me as a lawyer to see people getting super invested in this case and then thinking their personal judgments and opinions will dictate the outcome. It won't. Lively has sued based on employment and harassment law (also some contract claims as they are treating that 17-point list as a contract, since it was a signed agreement, which is a legally sound argument) and her fact pattern backs this up with some pretty damning evidence on the retaliation claim thanks to those texts and the very unfortunate language used by all parties in them. That's the conflict. You can think Lively is annoying, pushy, controlling, manipulative, etc., and you can think Baldoni is a great dude who got played, and it will have no bearing on the outcome of this case if it turns out Lively actually believed she was being harassed and Baldoni et al launched a smear campaign to "bury" her so that she wouldn't be believed if she came forward.

People's judgment is being very clouded by personal feelings and this case will not be about personal feelings.

We have disagreed on other legal points in the case but this is a pretty excellent and clear-eyed breakdown of the strengths and weaknesses of each side’s filings. I will also admit that you are probably more experienced in these particular areas of the law than I am.

It’s interesting to me that you may view the MTDs besides NYT’s even more favorably than I do. I had thought that most of those would likely be granted to some extent but with leave to amend; your allusion to a potential freak out reaction suggests you might go even farther than that on at least some of the weaker claims against even the non-NYT parties like defamation and extortion.

I agree that I am probably more bullish than most on claims being dismissed with prejudice after these MTDs. I think a lot of people think they'll be dismissed without prejudice and that Wayfarer will be given a chance to replead to solve the group pleading issue. Normally I would agree, but after reviewing the MTDs last week, I actually think most claims will be dismissed with prejudice. The reason why is that the MTDs pretty effectively lay out how in most cases, Wayfarer has failed to even plead the elements of the claim. This is especially true of the extortion claims (Wayfarer never identifies what of value that Lively/Reynolds/Sloane supposedly gained, plus if CA law is ruled to control, it's not a valid claim anyway) and the tortious interference claim (Wayfarer doesn't even produce the contract that was supposedly violated due to Reynold's/Lively's actions, nor do they even allege that WME's decision to cease representation violated a contract -- talent agents have broad leeway to drop clients for virtually any reason, including bad PR and conflicts with other clients).

I think given these deficiencies, Liman is very unlikely to give Wayfarer a chance to replead these claims due to the group pleading issue -- they've already had a chance to correct the pleading on these claims and still failed to properly allege a fact pattern that would meet the elements here. Giving them a third chance simply because they ALSO made this glaring group pleading error is not in the spirit of how MTDs are usually handled. The whole point of an MTD is to get rid of claims that parties have brought in bad faith without any real basis to believe they are true. I think that's the case here and that Liman is going to have little tolerance of it.

I do think some of the defamation allegations could survive, but in a more limited way than what they've pled (I think the defamation claims against NYT and Sloane will all be dropped, but that perhaps the claim against Reynolds for the "predator" comments and Lively for her statements to the NYT could survive). However, I also think if those defamation claims survive, they will wind up being stayed pending the outcome of Lively's lawsuit. Because if Lively can win her lawsuit, those defamation claims cease to have any real matter. Conversely, if she loses, it would serve to support the defamation claims. Either way, at the end of the day, this case is going to be about Lively's SH/retaliation claims, not this elaborate allegation of conspiracy by all the defendants to extort and defame Wayfarer. That whole argument reads like a White Lotus fan theory to me. It's not grounded in facts or law, as demonstrated by the pleadings.

Thanks for this response. Very interesting and lots to think about here, including the purpose behind MTD rulings and the idea of a stay on any remaining defamation claims while the issue of the truth behind the SH allegations is settled first. Thanks for laying this out.

The two of you tag teaming is so obvious, even occurs in website feedback.

Yep. They’ve been tag teaming for a while now. Glad someone else picked up on it.

I'm not one of the posters involved in that comment thread, but people are allowed to agree with each other, just as you two posters are doing right now.

[Anonymous]

I'm one of the people accused of "tag teaming" (the one who thinks a lot of Wayfarer's claims will be dismissed with prejudice and outlined why) and I definitely don't team up with anyone on here. I am interested in the legal aspects of the case and sometimes come down on the side of BL and sometimes JB. I'm not trying to push an angle in favor of either of them, just pontificating about my views on the legal issues, as lawyers do

I also don't post in website feedback? Not even sure what that refers to.

[Anonymous]

So how many pro Lively attorneys do we have here today? I’m a pro Baldoni, non litigating attorney. Probably can’t be swayed at this point.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how many pro Lively attorneys do we have here today? I’m a pro Baldoni, non litigating attorney. Probably can’t be swayed at this point.

I’m a lawyer too. Not exactly pro JB because I don’t care that much about either of them, but I think BL’s case is weak (juries will find her facts as weak as most of us do) and I’m fascinated by JB’s legal and PR clapbacks.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So how many pro Lively attorneys do we have here today? I’m a pro Baldoni, non litigating attorney. Probably can’t be swayed at this point.

Me too, but a litigator.

[Anonymous]

You seem to be counting the PP attorney who laid down some knowledge on the MTDs as a pro-Lively attorney. They are not. I think they have argued with me or others on multiple legal issues, reaching a decidedly non-pro-Lively conclusion.

Otherwise, I don’t really owe you anything, particularly given the level of rudeness regularly shot at me from your side on this board, particularly anything that is going to lead to increased numbers of ridiculous claims that I’m some Lively bot or paid law student.

[Anonymous]

I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

Oh, wow. I’m the PP (generally pro-Lively person) just above and I really, really dislike Bryan Freedman too! I have regularly commented here about how I think his ego and childish vendetta style gets in the way of good argument. But pro-Baldoni people really seem to like him. I think at least half the reason I am generally pro-Lively is because of my dislike of a bunch of the smarmy things he has done in this litigation so far.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

Oh, wow. I’m the PP (generally pro-Lively person) just above and I really, really dislike Bryan Freedman too! I have regularly commented here about how I think his ego and childish vendetta style gets in the way of good argument. But pro-Baldoni people really seem to like him. I think at least half the reason I am generally pro-Lively is because of my dislike of a bunch of the smarmy things he has done in this litigation so far.

Sorry — to be clear, for others — I am PP at 16:32 and 16:21, but not PP at 16:27, lol.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

DP. are you a big law lawyer?

[Anonymous]

Just be careful. Not your friends and all that, ha!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

Oh, wow. I’m the PP (generally pro-Lively person) just above and I really, really dislike Bryan Freedman too! I have regularly commented here about how I think his ego and childish vendetta style gets in the way of good argument. But pro-Baldoni people really seem to like him. I think at least half the reason I am generally pro-Lively is because of my dislike of a bunch of the smarmy things he has done in this litigation so far.

I have no opinion about him as a lawyer, and I have much less interest in the legal side of this case. The PR scandal is much more interesting to me, given how powerful Blake and Ryan and their brands are and how much is at stake for them here. They appear to have been either really ill advised or just so full of hubris they thought it would never get this far.

The public website with the timeline and texts and the release of the video of the dance scene with the audio is the slam dunk in this battle. And if that was Freedman’ doing, it was genius. Because Blake was trying to show a pattern of behavior without any big smoking guns in terms of sexual harassment, it was equally important for them to show the full timeline, and the full timeline with all the texting and things they included, paints a much different picture and adds so much more context. I think without that we would probably all be on Blake’s side just given her 17 point list.

What is fascinating to me as if this were 10 years ago before so many social media influencers, TikTok, and podcasts, I really think people would not have the patience to go through the full website published, but we now have all of these people taking us through this content, and making it super easy for people to just be on their commute or doing laundry and have someone else read through Blake Liv‘s text exchange with Justin, etc.

When summarized quickly via a people magazine 6 paragraph story or a 2 minute segment on a morning snow, it looks very much he said she said. But having all the material freedman supplied is making Blake’s team have to work so much harder.

Maybe anyone would have done that strategy, but regardless, if he did it, I think getting all of that out there, even if they had had a gag order which didn’t end up happening, the cat was out of the bag.

I still think this case will eventually settle cause I do not think Blake and Ryan want this going to trial.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

Oh, wow. I’m the PP (generally pro-Lively person) just above and I really, really dislike Bryan Freedman too! I have regularly commented here about how I think his ego and childish vendetta style gets in the way of good argument. But pro-Baldoni people really seem to like him. I think at least half the reason I am generally pro-Lively is because of my dislike of a bunch of the smarmy things he has done in this litigation so far.

I have no opinion about him as a lawyer, and I have much less interest in the legal side of this case. The PR scandal is much more interesting to me, given how powerful Blake and Ryan and their brands are and how much is at stake for them here. They appear to have been either really ill advised or just so full of hubris they thought it would never get this far.

The public website with the timeline and texts and the release of the video of the dance scene with the audio is the slam dunk in this battle. And if that was Freedman’ doing, it was genius. Because Blake was trying to show a pattern of behavior without any big smoking guns in terms of sexual harassment, it was equally important for them to show the full timeline, and the full timeline with all the texting and things they included, paints a much different picture and adds so much more context. I think without that we would probably all be on Blake’s side just given her 17 point list.

What is fascinating to me as if this were 10 years ago before so many social media influencers, TikTok, and podcasts, I really think people would not have the patience to go through the full website published, but we now have all of these people taking us through this content, and making it super easy for people to just be on their commute or doing laundry and have someone else read through Blake Liv‘s text exchange with Justin, etc.

When summarized quickly via a people magazine 6 paragraph story or a 2 minute segment on a morning snow, it looks very much he said she said. But having all the material freedman supplied is making Blake’s team have to work so much harder.

Maybe anyone would have done that strategy, but regardless, if he did it, I think getting all of that out there, even if they had had a gag order which didn’t end up happening, the cat was out of the bag.

I still think this case will eventually settle cause I do not think Blake and Ryan want this going to trial.

+1. I like BF. I think he’s played this right given what’s at stake for his clients. I feel like some of the lawyers on this thread are strict constructionists and get too focused on things like writing style, how something was plead, very technical details. I think people overly focused on those elements are forgetting how important the PR side of this is for these particular plaintiffs and defendants. BF knows the climate and knows he’ll get an opportunity to amend if needed and he had to weigh that against the PR value of moving fast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm a former litigator, pro-no one, but with a strong bias for the way Lively's legal team is litigating over Bryan Freedman's style. I worked with and against lawyers like BF in my career and am not a fan, even when it's effective. I think a lot of what he does is morally borderline and some things strike me as downright unethical. I'm also familiar with him from more than this case, so some of my bias against him comes from knowing about stuff he's done in other cases that I think is really across the line.

That doesn't mean I think Lively is right about everything, or even that she's going to win. I try to be fairly balanced in my comments here and when Lively's team makes mistakes or when Freedman has a win, I will say so.

I've been accused of being pro-Lively and I've also had pro-BL people argue with things I've said. [shrug emoji]

Oh, wow. I’m the PP (generally pro-Lively person) just above and I really, really dislike Bryan Freedman too! I have regularly commented here about how I think his ego and childish vendetta style gets in the way of good argument. But pro-Baldoni people really seem to like him. I think at least half the reason I am generally pro-Lively is because of my dislike of a bunch of the smarmy things he has done in this litigation so far.

I have no opinion about him as a lawyer, and I have much less interest in the legal side of this case. The PR scandal is much more interesting to me, given how powerful Blake and Ryan and their brands are and how much is at stake for them here. They appear to have been either really ill advised or just so full of hubris they thought it would never get this far.

The public website with the timeline and texts and the release of the video of the dance scene with the audio is the slam dunk in this battle. And if that was Freedman’ doing, it was genius. Because Blake was trying to show a pattern of behavior without any big smoking guns in terms of sexual harassment, it was equally important for them to show the full timeline, and the full timeline with all the texting and things they included, paints a much different picture and adds so much more context. I think without that we would probably all be on Blake’s side just given her 17 point list.

What is fascinating to me as if this were 10 years ago before so many social media influencers, TikTok, and podcasts, I really think people would not have the patience to go through the full website published, but we now have all of these people taking us through this content, and making it super easy for people to just be on their commute or doing laundry and have someone else read through Blake Liv‘s text exchange with Justin, etc.

When summarized quickly via a people magazine 6 paragraph story or a 2 minute segment on a morning snow, it looks very much he said she said. But having all the material freedman supplied is making Blake’s team have to work so much harder.

Maybe anyone would have done that strategy, but regardless, if he did it, I think getting all of that out there, even if they had had a gag order which didn’t end up happening, the cat was out of the bag.

I still think this case will eventually settle cause I do not think Blake and Ryan want this going to trial.

I'm with you, I actually find the legal aspect pretty boring but the PR aspect and their precipitous fall from grace is much more interesting to me. Ultimately, celebrities need good PR to be able to get roles and sell things to the public, they need that goodwill. I think Blake and Ryan have completely destroyed that and I would love to know what their publicists are planning in terms of trying to claw the goodwill of the public back to their side, especially as they seem to be shooting themselves in the foot left and right with some of their moves (SNL). I guess you could think doubling down on the legal case and hoping to eek out a win a year from now would do it? I'm really not convinced that's the case. I just don't know how they pull themselves out of this hole because they're reputations are in the trash. I think in bringing this to court they have a lot to lose (can you imagine Blake on the stand behaving like she does in interviews? Lol) and not that much to gain.