Reply to Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DP.  So, wait, the Baldoni supporters don’t think any discovery will be allowed on whether Jed Wallace has astroturfed in the past, besides on Lively’s case?  No dep questions because “it isn’t relevant at all for these claims”?  I’m not sure they’ll get a bunch of RFPs about it like the other PP was suggesting but I think saying it isn’t relevant at all is wishful thinking. Another DP above explained more carefully how and why Wallace’s astroturfing info from other cases could come in.[/quote]

+1, the work Wallace had done for Nathan and Abel in the past would be directly relevant to what they hired Wallace to do on Baldoni's behalf. I don't think they would be allowed a "fishing expedition" to inquire about any work Wallace had ever done for anyone else, but I do think they would be allowed to ask what the working relationship between Nathan/Abel and Wallace had been in the past, and especially whether this was provided to Baldoni to induce him to hire them or to subcontract Wallace.

I'm not saying they'll find anything, and the answer on all sides might be "we've never hired Wallace to astroturf against someone and didn't in this case" in which case it's all moot. But the idea that Lively's lawyers won't even be allowed to inquire about the sort of work Wallace has done for this particular PR/crisis team is silly. It's not even really a stretch to say it's relevant.[/quote]

You are incredibly naive if you think a judge is going to order discovery on other clients.[/quote]

I didn't say order discovery. I said ask. I think lawyers will be allowed to ask Nathan, Abel, and Wallace about work he'd done for them in the past. I think it would be considered relevant to whether Nathan and Abel expected Wallace to astroturf against Lively, and (if Wallace did indeed do that) whether they could be expected to have known. I agree a judge is not going to compel discovery from Wallace on all his other clients.

A lot of this comes down to whether or not Wallace actually did any astorturfing/seeding against Lively. I honestly don't know! It sounds likely he's done that kind of work in the past (in fact very likely he did it against Amber Heard for Johnny Depp and this same PR team) but it's also entirely possible that he didn't do it against Lively because her own boneheaded PR moves made it unnecessary.

I am thrown by the text message between Nathan and Abel in which they specifically credit Wallace's team for online sentiment. But it's possible they were referring to work Wallace had done to seed stories that focused on Baldoni in a good light. I don't know.

I would assume any deposition of Wallace, Nathan, and Abel would get into this because it's pretty central to the retaliation claims.

I'm not saying all this because I think Lively has a great case or I think Baldoni is a predator -- I don't. But from a legal perspective, it's perfectly relevant whether Nathan/Abel had contracted with Wallace in the past to do the kind of astroturfing he is alleged to have done here. The proximity in time of the Depp/Heard case and the fact that it was the same PR team makes it more likely that they will ask about it because it could also go to why Baldoni hired that particular team. I think Lively's team will try to establish that Baldoni specifically worked with *this* PR team because they had so successfully destroyed Amber Heard. Whether that's a valid argument, I really don't know. How many PR teams like this are there in Hollywood? How weird is it that Baldoni used the same people? I truly don't know the answer to that question.[/quote]

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