Reply to Blake Lively- Jason Baldoni and NYT

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’m confused as to why people are saying there’s no monetary value to the PGA credential. Producers get huge backend on movies. It’s actually why it’s really rare for a producer not to have been involved in fundraising and development and they often use a little bit of their own money to have skin in the game.

Blake missed that part of the requirement for the pga credit as she was not brought on until the movie was well developed and getting ready to shoot so she tried to make up for it in the other two phases of the requirements. But I’m pretty sure being a producer means she got backend and that is money out of Wayfair’s pocket so there is monetary value to it.

Also, if the rumors are true that Colleen Hoover had a sexual harassment clause for Justin to develop the sequel, it  certainly seems Blake was trying to get chummy with Colleen Hoover, it can certainly be argued that she was trying to get the rights to the second movie which clearly has monetary value.

People waiving off Taylor’s involvement are either being naïve or deliberately obtuse. Blake threatened to not use the my tears ricochet song in the marketing of the film, which clearly has a lot of relevance to how much money the film is going to make - a Taylor Swift song in your previews is going to get people interested and watching. 
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It will be interesting to see if the lawyers get into the weeds on thing of value. I would argue the PGA credit is not. I would support a petition to look into rescinding her credit but I do not believe the credit is a thing of value for the purpose of extortion. Thinking along the line of this definition https://definitions.uslegal.com/a/anything-of-value/

The credit is not really something you can exchange for money. My understanding is it's a matter of prestige. AFAIK it doesn't effect the backend. If it did, then I would reconsider. I thought Blake already had a credit. If Wayfarer and Justin lost money because of it they need to make that argument explicitly. They are suing for extortion so they are the ones who must show they meet the elements.

I would also point out they technically didn't give her the credit. They wrote a letter of support.

The movie rights I believe are a thing of value. It's a contract that can be sold to someone else for money. They would need to make a clear argument about what threats were made and to whom. The idea that they might have done this or that is too speculative. A more classic example of extortion would be "sign over the rights or ill break your legs." IMO they have to argue there was explicitly something done by Lively and co that was like "sign over the rights or we go to the press" whereas the argument I see being made in his complaint is just generally that she was pushing for more power and there was this looming threat in Justin‘s mind that she might go to the press and lie about SH. His complaint would need to be significantly reworked IMO. [/quote]

But what about at least her a half dozen threats in writing from her lawyers that she would walk if they didn’t do something that she wanted? Those are all documented emails from her legal team clearly stating that she would not return to set. And After shooting was done that she would not participate in marketing. I do not understand how that is not monetary value if they shoot half the movie and Blake doesn’t return - that is a huge cost. [/quote]

But it's not something of monetary value that Blake received.

Yes, had she walked, it would have cost Wayfarer a ton of money and potentially tanked the movie for good. But that's not extortion, it's a contract breach, which they could turn sue her for. But there's nothing of value she gets there.

And before anyone says "well they couldn't sue her for breach of contract because she didn't sign her contract," this probably isn't true. Once she has substantially performed enough of the contract that Wayfarer was relying on her to finish the movie, she would be beholden to their agreement to make the movie whether she signed or not.

So a legal remedy existed for them if she walked away from the film, but it's not an extortion claims.

IMO, in order to make the extortion claims, they need to rely on her threats to go public with the SH claims only, not her threats to walk away from filming or not to market the movie, both of which would have opened her up to breach of contract claims as well as other legal claims based on the money lost to both Wayfarer and Sony.

But then they still run into the "thing of value" issue. I am not sure if the p.g.a. credit would count. It seems like a stretch to me, both because it doesn't carry monetary value and because Wayfarer didn't give it to her, they just gave her an endorsement.

I don't think the thing of value could be the rights to the sequel even if she explicitly made threats to try and get them. She didn't get them, and there's no "attempted extortion" claim -- you can't bring the claim unless the defendant successfully extorted you.[/quote]

I get what you’re saying - that makes total sense about the extortion, but if Justin can show all this doesn’t he have a pretty compelling case that he wasn’t retaliating against her, that he knew what she was capable of, and he feared for his career? She took over his movie, then was bashing him in the press. I’m pretty sure Wayfarer didn’t start the fat shaming rumor which is the first thing I heard about the cast unfollowing him before the premiere.

And then Ryan walking around calling him a sexual predator. I get that they don’t have a case for extortion, but it certainly seems they have a compelling case for why he hired the PR firm and just painting to the jury exactly what he was up against here.

Add to that Leslie Sloan running around and telling the press Blake is not the problem. Justin is. The whole cast hates him. And so on.

Legally, I have no idea if any of this matters, but it certainly highlights a very interesting power dynamic – mainly that she had all the power and Justin had very little. [/quote]

Yes, some (though not all) of this can be presented as part of his defense against the SH and retaliation claims.

This is where I get frustrated with Freedman's approach to this case, even if it may be effective. The problem is that they didn't argue this as a defense to the SH claims. Instead, the filed their own action, dragged in the NYT, and argued for what I view as really unlikely and unsupported claims for defamation, extortion, tortious interference, etc. Like I'm sorry but I find the accusation that Lively "stole" a movie that not only still belongs to Wayfarer but off of which they've made an unbelievable sum of money to be laughable.

I get it, they wanted to get their version of events out quickly (not weighting around for responsive pleadings or trial) and they wanted to change the public perception of the SH claims. That zealous representation and it's allowed. However, Baldoni's lawsuits are borderline frivolous. They are poorly written and the legal argument is junk, when there even is one, which usually they don't bother. They used the lawsuit as a vehicle to get out a bunch of embarrassing texts and emails from Lively and Reynolds and to start building an alternate theory of the case in the public eye. This is a somewhat shady use of civil court to prosecute a case in the public eye, and it's also expensive -- the time spent on Baldoni's claims in a federal court amounts to a LOT of taxpayer dollars to essentially help him with PR problem.

And if you are okay with that, which I assume most Baldoni supporters are, I really don't get the meltdown over the VanZan Doe lawsuit, which is also a somewhat shady use of the civil court system BUT one that did not cost taxpayers a lot of money (the procedural costs of the lawsuit were minimal, a small amount of a judge and clerk's time to agree to the subpoena, which was uncontested by the served party) and is a pretty broadly used practice for obtaining evidence that could help a plaintiff shape a lawsuit to make it more viable.

I just get weary of the dramatic emotion over this case, which is a pretty interesting piece of high profile litigation, by people who clearly have no clue on how litigation works. Like this thread is full of people earnestly debating the merits of claims Baldoni is making with literally no evidence and no real legal premise, but then freaking out about the VanZan subpoena like it's some egregious abuse.

I dip in here now and then for fun, but then get accused of being a Lively shill simply for not lovingly endorsing everything about Baldoni's case, even though I rarely say anything supportive of the substance if Lively's case.

Just exhausting. Some of you are going to be so confused and angry at how this case shakes out because you just don't get how litigation works. Even the ones claiming to be lawyers! I hope you're actually law students, the comments have that vibe. Anyway, good luck.

[/quote]

It’s Blake’s case and her sham article with the NYT that started this mess. Plus her sham subpoena.  Let’s not forget that. It seems like you’d like us to. [/quote]

Right, everything Lively does is a "sham" but Baldoni filing totally specious claims and tying the case up for months over then but refusing to actually pleas them correctly or produce even basic information about the alleged offenses is fine.

The hypocrisy is really something.[/quote]

Yes, sham. The NYT certainly regrets running that piece of garbage [/quote]

I disagree. Twohey has subsequently discussed and quoted from the article in a podcast. NYT also featured Blake and her speech prominently in their coverage of the Time 100. They are vigorously defending the lawsuits and have not recanted the story. I'm not saying I agree with them, but all indicators are that they stand by the story.[/quote]

Not exactly accurate. Twohey did a podcast right after but nothing since then. And the NYT always defends libel claims, doesn’t mean they don’t regret the story. They won’t walk away from their fair report privilege argument bc it is an important defense for many other potential libel claims and they don’t want to undermine it, but they certainly know this story was garbage. [/quote]

DP but you aren't being accurate either. The podcast episode aired in late January (I'm a regular listener of The Daily so I remember, but you can check). More than a month after the article came out. I remember thinking it was significant that they chose to air an episode on the article, interviewing Twohey, after they'd been sued. I viewed it as an indication that they'd combed through everything with lawyers and felt confident that the claim didn't have merit, and thus chose to double down on the reporting. There's no way they would have aired that episode if their lawyers were concerned that the defamation claim has legs.[/quote]

It seems like most of us agree that the defamation case against the time doesn’t have legs. That doesn’t mean the times walks away Scot free from this. Their actions have consequences and if you don’t think the plunging subscription rates recently are because of articles like this and a number of questionable articles they ran during the election then you’d be wrong.

[b]Add this to the fact that Megan locked down her Instagram, which is not great for a reporter trying to engage with the public[/b]. It’s possible that after this women will hesitate to go to her or the times to share these kinds of stories.

I know there are a lot of lawyers on this thread, but there’s more to life than just winning legal cases. Public image and reputation are real things that have value to people.

We are only in this mess because Blake  real real unhappy about the bad press she was getting in August and she wanted to blame Justin for that. Reputation and public perception matters. [/quote]

This speaks volumes [/quote]

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