If this is the basis for the Venable subpoena, why did Venable file the motion to quash? Freedman is now saying he thinks it will be mooted soon because they are working together.

Curious what changed between Venables MTQ, which was pretty strongly worded, and this letter. Especially because in the meantime Lively joined the MTQ and filed the motion to intervene, and the wording of that motion seemed to indicate that Venable and Lively's team were working together.

Curious to hear from Venable here. If they moot the MTQ then we'll know, but it doesn't look like it's happened yet.

Anonymous wrote:The circus never ends!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14711445/blake-lively-threatened-taylor-swift-texts-support-justin-baldoni.html

Blake Lively allegedly threatened to leak embarrassing private texts from bestie Taylor Swift unless the pop star agreed to publicly back the actress in her feud with co-star Justin Baldoni, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Welp, now we know why Freedman sent a subpoena to Venable. For the record, I said yesterday attempts to influence a witness as a reason for the subpoena and one of the Lively supporters mocked me.

Anonymous wrote:Here's what Freedman's letter to Liman about the Venable subpeona says (it is juicy, emphasis mine to help people who skim):

The Wayfarer Parties anticipate that Venable’s motion to quash will be mooted in short order, as their counsel and Venable are conferring in good faith. However, the Lively Defendants’ insistence that the Subpoena seeks irrelevant information is wrong. The Subpoena aims to obtain discovery relating to witness tampering and evidence spoliation. Specifically, the Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are informed and believe, based on information from a source who is highly likely to have reliable information, that (i) Ms. Lively requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages; (ii) Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, counsel for the Lively Defendants, contacted a Venable attorney who represents Ms. Swift and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released. The Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are further informed and believe that a representative of Ms. Swift addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb. It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.

That is a huge accusation, like really really huge, and would be devastating for Lively's case here, both in court and out of it. I am personally choosing to wait and see because the allegation is so explosive that I think it's dangerous to even let myself think one way or the other about it until more info is available.

I of course want to know who the source is!

One reason I am reserving judgment on this is the allegation against Gottlieb. It's explosive. It's one thing to believe Blake Lively would ask Taylor to delete messages or come out with a public statement of support (I buy both). It's something else to believe that Gottlieb would issue a threat on Lively's behalf. Gottlieb doesn't have some long history with Lively or Reynolds (this is his first representation of either of them) and the rest of his career is pretty impressive. He also works with other people in the industry extensively, including his current work for Drake and previous representation of Sony. He's not an idiot and there's no evidence that he has a history of shady behavior like this. I am struggling with he idea that he would do something like this.

And Freedman has a history of being pretty bombastic in his filings and allegations, and not always being 100% truthful. He's really good at stretching the truth in ways that benefit him while giving himself legal cover when he needs to. Like in this case, he could allege this super explosive thing based on a "source" just to control a narrative here, but if it turns out that discovery doesn't turn up anything like this, or the communications it uncovers are much more sedate or even innocent, he can just blame the source and say "whatever, we thought there was something on information or belief." This is not totally outside the realm of how he has operated previously so I am taking a wait and see approach before I jump on this bandwagon, even though obviously if this is true, it's really, really bad for Lively.

So I would urge a bit of caution here.

Anonymous wrote:Here's what Freedman's letter to Liman about the Venable subpeona says (it is juicy, emphasis mine to help people who skim):

The Wayfarer Parties anticipate that Venable’s motion to quash will be mooted in short order, as their counsel and Venable are conferring in good faith. However, the Lively Defendants’ insistence that the Subpoena seeks irrelevant information is wrong. The Subpoena aims to obtain discovery relating to witness tampering and evidence spoliation. Specifically, the Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are informed and believe, based on information from a source who is highly likely to have reliable information, that (i) Ms. Lively requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages; (ii) Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, counsel for the Lively Defendants, contacted a Venable attorney who represents Ms. Swift and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released. The Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are further informed and believe that a representative of Ms. Swift addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb. It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.

That is a huge accusation, like really really huge, and would be devastating for Lively's case here, both in court and out of it. I am personally choosing to wait and see because the allegation is so explosive that I think it's dangerous to even let myself think one way or the other about it until more info is available.

I of course want to know who the source is!

That sounds like an attempt to blackmail Swift. Yikes.

Here's what Freedman's letter to Liman about the Venable subpeona says (it is juicy, emphasis mine to help people who skim):

The Wayfarer Parties anticipate that Venable’s motion to quash will be mooted in short order, as their counsel and Venable are conferring in good faith. However, the Lively Defendants’ insistence that the Subpoena seeks irrelevant information is wrong. The Subpoena aims to obtain discovery relating to witness tampering and evidence spoliation. Specifically, the Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are informed and believe, based on information from a source who is highly likely to have reliable information, that (i) Ms. Lively requested that Taylor Swift delete their text messages; (ii) Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr, counsel for the Lively Defendants, contacted a Venable attorney who represents Ms. Swift and demanded that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released. The Wayfarer Parties’ counsel are further informed and believe that a representative of Ms. Swift addressed these inappropriate and apparently extortionate threats in at least one written communication transmitted to Mr. Gottlieb. It is those communications that the Wayfarer Parties seek to obtain by way of subpoena, as they would evidence an attempt to intimidate and coerce a percipient witness in this litigation.

That is a huge accusation, like really really huge, and would be devastating for Lively's case here, both in court and out of it. I am personally choosing to wait and see because the allegation is so explosive that I think it's dangerous to even let myself think one way or the other about it until more info is available.

I of course want to know who the source is!

The circus never ends!

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-14711445/blake-lively-threatened-taylor-swift-texts-support-justin-baldoni.html

Blake Lively allegedly threatened to leak embarrassing private texts from bestie Taylor Swift unless the pop star agreed to publicly back the actress in her feud with co-star Justin Baldoni, DailyMail.com can exclusively reveal.

Oh god

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^ should say it was granted as to all requests except tax docs AND financial docs. Was typing as I was reading. Looks like Lively's team has to go back to square one for all their requests related to damages, not just the tax stuff.

Ah, sorry folks, I am trying to do so much. Actually Lively is getting the financial docs! Here's what Liman says:

The Wayfarer Parties are seeking substantial economic damages in this case from Lively’s alleged tortious conduct... Documents sufficient to show the net worth of each of the Wayfarer Parties, including financial statements, assets, and liabilities, and for the corporate entities, financial statements, year-end balance statements, and documents sufficient to show gross income, net income, and expenditures, are relevant and should be produced.

BUT

However, Lively has not shown an entitlement to the tax returns of the Wayfarer Parties. “Due to ‘the private nature of the sensitive information contained therein, and in part from the public interest in encouraging the filing by taxpayers of complete and accurate returns,’ courts
‘have long been reluctant’ to order discovery of tax returns.”... Although the returns are relevant to the subject matter of the action, Lively has not shown that the information she seeks will not be contained within the other documents she has requested and that the Court has ordered be
produced. Lively also has not shown that documents concerning the liquidation of assets by Abel, Nathan, Baldoni, Heath, and Sarowitz are relevant to the claim for damages.

So she is actually getting a lot of financial docs, but not the tax returns and not the liquidation of assets docs. However, if once she has the other documents, it turns out that there is information related to damages that is still missing, she could make another request for the tax and liquidation docs, but it would need to be targeted to what is missing and the bar for showing that the info is need will be higher because of the higher privacy standard regarding tax documents.

OK, I think this is accurate now. Sorry about the confusion.

Thank you!

Anonymous wrote:^ should say it was granted as to all requests except tax docs AND financial docs. Was typing as I was reading. Looks like Lively's team has to go back to square one for all their requests related to damages, not just the tax stuff.

Ah, sorry folks, I am trying to do so much. Actually Lively is getting the financial docs! Here's what Liman says:

The Wayfarer Parties are seeking substantial economic damages in this case from Lively’s alleged tortious conduct... Documents sufficient to show the net worth of each of the Wayfarer Parties, including financial statements, assets, and liabilities, and for the corporate entities, financial statements, year-end balance statements, and documents sufficient to show gross income, net income, and expenditures, are relevant and should be produced.

BUT

However, Lively has not shown an entitlement to the tax returns of the Wayfarer Parties. “Due to ‘the private nature of the sensitive information contained therein, and in part from the public interest in encouraging the filing by taxpayers of complete and accurate returns,’ courts
‘have long been reluctant’ to order discovery of tax returns.”... Although the returns are relevant to the subject matter of the action, Lively has not shown that the information she seeks will not be contained within the other documents she has requested and that the Court has ordered be
produced. Lively also has not shown that documents concerning the liquidation of assets by Abel, Nathan, Baldoni, Heath, and Sarowitz are relevant to the claim for damages.

So she is actually getting a lot of financial docs, but not the tax returns and not the liquidation of assets docs. However, if once she has the other documents, it turns out that there is information related to damages that is still missing, she could make another request for the tax and liquidation docs, but it would need to be targeted to what is missing and the bar for showing that the info is need will be higher because of the higher privacy standard regarding tax documents.

OK, I think this is accurate now. Sorry about the confusion.

Anonymous wrote:^ should say it was granted as to all requests except tax docs AND financial docs. Was typing as I was reading. Looks like Lively's team has to go back to square one for all their requests related to damages, not just the tax stuff.

Dude. What?? Can you retype this?

^ should say it was granted as to all requests except tax docs AND financial docs. Was typing as I was reading. Looks like Lively's team has to go back to square one for all their requests related to damages, not just the tax stuff.

Judge Liman has ruled on the motion to compel.

Granted as to all requests except tax documents; these have to be submitted by May 28th at the latest.

Denied without prejudice as to the tax and financial documents, so Lively's side can resubmit those requests but presumably have to narrow or do a better job of showing relevancy.

I'd say this is a mixed bag result. He's granted the motion for the most part and given a firm deadline for Wayfarer (though Wayfarer has shown a broad willingness to ignore discovery deadlines thus far). Denying the MTC as to the financial docs is major blow, IMO, but denying it without prejudice lessens it. They are still early in discovery and I assume Lively's lawyers asked for a lot in the first pass and will now narrow and see what they can get.

I do look forward to both sides claiming this is an unequivocal win for either side. I think like most of Liman's rulings, it's right down the middle. I think that's his m.o. for the entire discovery process -- he knows scrutiny of his rulings here is unusually intense and that supporters of both sides are looking both for evidence their side is "winning" and looking for reasons to blast the court for being biased toward the other side. I think he's making extra effort to kind of split the baby in order not to play into that dynamic, while still moving discovery along and keeping lawyers on both sides honest in terms of producing and not over-reaching with requests.

Anonymous wrote:I can not get over the criticism of Freedman given that Lively filed sham litigation to deprive the WF defendants of their right to object to a subpoena for their texts. Is sending a subpoena unorthodox? perhaps. But it doesn’t deprive anyone of their right to object to production, as both Lively and Venable are currently exercising this rights.

Right. BL’s attorneys honestly have nerve to attempt to compel anything when they started discovery with a massive head start because of their sham filing. I know this won’t happen, but if individual rights mattered at all, the judge would dismiss her case and force them to refile their complaint without the ill gotten discovery and then go about getting the information they need the appropriate way. And in a truly fair world, he’d dismiss with prejudice because you really can’t put the cat back in the bag. Lively’s team should have never had those texts and it’s unlikely they would’ve ever been able to show cause to get them through a proper subpoena so they would simply have no case here if the rules of civil procedure had been followed.

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Anonymous wrote:BF just wrote a letter to judge Liman in response to all of the various motions to compel Blake has submitted to Liman regarding nonparties in other districts. BF basically says sorry judge but you don’t have jurisdiction over these subpoenas and lively should stop running and crying to you anyways because she hasn’t produced a single document either. He ends the short letter with his new favorite zinger, Van Sham, saying “all that is known, though not disclosed by Lively, is that she improperly obtained defendant Jennifer Abel’s documents from Joneswork LLC pursuant to a so-called ‘subpoena’ issued in a sham lawsuit filed without notice to any of the Wayfarer parties.”

Completely wild. I need one of these judges to please rule on some of this stuff or hold a hearing or something, because the level of vitriol at what is still a fairly early stage of litigation, is insane. I don't even know who is right on the law at this point or who might be pissing the judge off more (truly, no idea), I just know things seem to be boiling over to crazy levels. I've been involved with some heated litigation in my day but this is next level.

Why would you assume vitriol would not be present? Did you hear the words and context behind those MTD? Do you understand that no longer having TS in their orb/khalessi world is huge for Lively? Did the CIA hire not warn you enough that they would go scorched earth? Didn’t anything from the 17 point list, the berating at the apartment, the exaggerated porn, kissing, and breastfeeding lies leave you outraged like many of us?

Why would you think they’d get to litigation and play nice? There is $400M on the line that RR does not want to pay, and lots of other downfall if they lose. Those two would burn Hollywood down if needed for a win in court.

First: chill.

Second: I was talking about the lawyers. You are talking about the parties. Usually at this stage, there is more politeness and professionalism between the lawyers. And I wasn't saying it was wrong (or right), more that it's over the top and it is making me want either some court rulings or a hearing to clarify whose arguments are winning out because I no longer have a good sense of how the litigation is going for either side, what ch si much mudslinging happening on both sides

Gottlieb has yet to agree to an extension or a leave to reply, etc . . while Freedman consistently has. As a litigator, I’d be annoyed by the lack of basic courtesy as well.

+1 Freedman also hasn’t filed any motions to compel even though BL’s side apparently hasn’t turned over any discovery either. BL’s lawyers are clogging up the court docket with nuisance motions and seemingly are trying to win this thing on technicalities instead of facts. They’re also racking up the billable hours for their clients.

This is a hilariously ironic statement. Guess who clogged up the courts by filing a ridiculous sexual harassment claim and running to the NYT to publish a hit piece on her co star?? Hmmm

Not sure why you’re so obsessed with freedman. He’s representing his client. The lawyers on the other side are as well, but they should have advised their client better before starting all of this. A good attorney doesn’t let their clients create messes like this.

Reading is fundamental.

As is context

You, a Baldoni supporter, are arguing above with another Baldoni supporter. You both appear to be arguing the same thing, that Lively's attorneys are clogging up courts with frivolous complaints and MTCs. Nevertheless, you are big mad and arguing. Have fun.

Maybe. Oh well. But the question is… why do YOU care so much? Why do you spend so much time on here posting your long diatribes, twisting facts and then running to Jeff to try to get this thread shut down?

You seem to be confusing multiple people. And that isn’t the question. Moreover, the answer to that question doesn’t actually matter to you, since I have answered it multiple times in this thread. Only if I made up an answer that conforms to your conspiracy theories, like “I don’t really believe Lively, I work on a bot farm in Thailand and am paid to write these comments” would my answer actually make any difference to you. (I do not and am not.). So let’s just stick to the case.

Look, no one thinks you/your partner work on a bot farm in Thailand (nice logical fallacy attempt though), it’s just obvious how obsessed and one sided you are.

I’ll write what I choose to write, thanks.

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Anonymous wrote:BF just wrote a letter to judge Liman in response to all of the various motions to compel Blake has submitted to Liman regarding nonparties in other districts. BF basically says sorry judge but you don’t have jurisdiction over these subpoenas and lively should stop running and crying to you anyways because she hasn’t produced a single document either. He ends the short letter with his new favorite zinger, Van Sham, saying “all that is known, though not disclosed by Lively, is that she improperly obtained defendant Jennifer Abel’s documents from Joneswork LLC pursuant to a so-called ‘subpoena’ issued in a sham lawsuit filed without notice to any of the Wayfarer parties.”

Completely wild. I need one of these judges to please rule on some of this stuff or hold a hearing or something, because the level of vitriol at what is still a fairly early stage of litigation, is insane. I don't even know who is right on the law at this point or who might be pissing the judge off more (truly, no idea), I just know things seem to be boiling over to crazy levels. I've been involved with some heated litigation in my day but this is next level.

Why would you assume vitriol would not be present? Did you hear the words and context behind those MTD? Do you understand that no longer having TS in their orb/khalessi world is huge for Lively? Did the CIA hire not warn you enough that they would go scorched earth? Didn’t anything from the 17 point list, the berating at the apartment, the exaggerated porn, kissing, and breastfeeding lies leave you outraged like many of us?

Why would you think they’d get to litigation and play nice? There is $400M on the line that RR does not want to pay, and lots of other downfall if they lose. Those two would burn Hollywood down if needed for a win in court.

First: chill.

Second: I was talking about the lawyers. You are talking about the parties. Usually at this stage, there is more politeness and professionalism between the lawyers. And I wasn't saying it was wrong (or right), more that it's over the top and it is making me want either some court rulings or a hearing to clarify whose arguments are winning out because I no longer have a good sense of how the litigation is going for either side, what ch si much mudslinging happening on both sides

Gottlieb has yet to agree to an extension or a leave to reply, etc . . while Freedman consistently has. As a litigator, I’d be annoyed by the lack of basic courtesy as well.

+1 Freedman also hasn’t filed any motions to compel even though BL’s side apparently hasn’t turned over any discovery either. BL’s lawyers are clogging up the court docket with nuisance motions and seemingly are trying to win this thing on technicalities instead of facts. They’re also racking up the billable hours for their clients.

This is a hilariously ironic statement. Guess who clogged up the courts by filing a ridiculous sexual harassment claim and running to the NYT to publish a hit piece on her co star?? Hmmm

Not sure why you’re so obsessed with freedman. He’s representing his client. The lawyers on the other side are as well, but they should have advised their client better before starting all of this. A good attorney doesn’t let their clients create messes like this.

Reading is fundamental.

As is context

You, a Baldoni supporter, are arguing above with another Baldoni supporter. You both appear to be arguing the same thing, that Lively's attorneys are clogging up courts with frivolous complaints and MTCs. Nevertheless, you are big mad and arguing. Have fun.

Maybe. Oh well. But the question is… why do YOU care so much? Why do you spend so much time on here posting your long diatribes, twisting facts and then running to Jeff to try to get this thread shut down?

You seem to be confusing multiple people. And that isn’t the question. Moreover, the answer to that question doesn’t actually matter to you, since I have answered it multiple times in this thread. Only if I made up an answer that conforms to your conspiracy theories, like “I don’t really believe Lively, I work on a bot farm in Thailand and am paid to write these comments” would my answer actually make any difference to you. (I do not and am not.). So let’s just stick to the case.