Blake Lively's Lawyers Fire Back Against Justin Baldoni's 'Misleading' Claims That She 'Refused' to Produce Records for Discovery
Blake Lively‘s lawyers are firing back at claims made by Justin Baldoni‘s team in their latest legal filing.
Justin‘s team claimed in a new filing that Blake was attempting to withdraw claims “of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress.”
The new report claimed that Justin‘s team was trying to get Blake to sign a HIPAA release to allow access to her therapy notes and other medical records as they need evidence to defend Justin against the allegations. His filing alleged that Blake was attempting to withdraw allegations to avoid turning over her medical records.
In a new letter to the judge, Blake‘s lawyers are speaking out against the filing and claim that the “motion was filed for a single audience: the media.”
Keep reading to find out more…
The letter added, “As the Wayfarer Parties make abundantly clear in their Motion, Ms. Lively voluntarily agreed to withdraw her infliction of emotional distress claims on Friday, May 30. Ms. Lively did so in good faith to streamline the dispute in the ordinary litigation process given the damages she otherwise anticipates recovering. Counsel for the Wayfarer Parties concede and are aware that this renders their discovery moot. Motion at 3. But they also have been desperately searching for an angle to make a show out of Ms. Lively’s decision to streamline her case.”
Blake‘s team is asking the judge to deny and strike the motion from Justin‘s team. She’s also suggesting that the court considers sanctions for “continued abuse.”
Read the full letter below…
Dear Judge Liman,
On behalf of our client, Blake Lively, we respectfully oppose the motion to compel and related filings by the Wayfarer Parties earlier today. Given that the Motion is a false and plainly improper public relations stunt, Ms. Lively further requests that the Court deny and strike the Motion pursuant to its “inherent power to control” material on its docket that is “abusive or otherwise improper under the circumstances.” Ms. Lively respectfully submits that the Court may wish to consider sanctions for the continued abuse of this Court’s docket.
The Motion was filed for a single audience: the media. There is nothing for this Court to compel. As the Wayfarer Parties make abundantly clear in their Motion, Ms. Lively voluntarily agreed to withdraw her infliction of emotional distress claims on Friday, May 30. Ms. Lively did so in good faith to streamline the dispute in the ordinary litigation process given the damages she otherwise anticipates recovering. Counsel for the Wayfarer Parties concede and are aware that this renders their discovery moot. Motion at 3. But they also have been desperately searching for an angle to make a show out of Ms. Lively’s decision to streamline her case.
Given this, counsel for the Wayfarer Parties attempted to seize on the parties’ agreement as to Ms. Lively’s withdrawal as a basis for this frivolous Motion. On Friday, counsel for the Wayfarer Parties proposed a stipulation to dismiss Ms. Lively’s tenth and eleventh causes of action for intentional and negligent infliction of emotional distress, respectively. Ms. Lively’s counsel provided proposed edits to the stipulation on Sunday evening, after receiving repeated emails on Friday, late Saturday evening, and early on Sunday morning, falsely and disingenuously claiming that Ms. Lively was refusing to participate in discovery (by not immediately responding in the middle of the night, apparently) and threatening to advise the Court. The Wayfarer Parties offered no basis whatsoever for their unnecessary escalation of a mutually agreeable streamlining of claims, or why finalizing the method of dismissal could not wait until Monday morning. Nonetheless, in an effort to defuse the situation and avoid unnecessarily burdening the Court, Ms. Lively agreed to the stipulated dismissal, and proposed modest revisions to the parties’ joint stipulation for dismissal on Sunday evening. In conveying the revisions, counsel for Ms. Lively offered to meet and confer regarding any dispute as to the language of the stipulation, including on the parties’ then-forthcoming teleconference scheduled for Monday afternoon at 4:30 pm EST. Counsel for the Wayfarer Parties (including Mr. Fritz as signatory on the Motion) attended the teleconference and did not address the stipulation. To be clear: at no point during the conference did they object to or raise any concern regarding Ms. Lively’s proposed revisions to the stipulation. Instead, they rushed to this Court to file this clearly pre-written Motion the minute that the teleconference concluded. Almost immediately thereafter, tabloid media began reporting “exclusively” on Ms. Lively’s “shock” move, claiming that she has “sensationally” dropped her IIED claim, quoting extensively from the Motion.
The Wayfarer Parties’ Motion should be denied and, further, should be struck. It is based on two brazenly false assertions. First, they claim that Ms. Lively has “refused” to disclose medical and mental health information, but as counsel for the Wayfarer Parties concede, that information is relevant only to Ms. Lively’s stand-alone tort-based emotional distress claims that she indicated she was withdrawing. To suggest that Ms. Lively has “refused” to produce anything (in either her written discovery responses, in the parties’ conference, or anytime thereafter) in connection with these claims is intentionally misleading to the Court and their intended audience for this false record: the public. Second, they claim that Ms. Lively has “refused” to properly stipulate to dismissal. But, that would suggest there was any discussion or mutually known dispute as to the stipulation. As noted, there was none. Further, the Motion seeks to improperly compel documents that the Wayfarer Parties lack a legal basis to obtain, and seeks no relief at all as to the stipulation. Because the Wayfarer Parties concede that Ms. Lively has agreed to dismiss the tenth and eleventh causes of action to which such discovery is solely directed, and they have agreed to the dismissal and proposed a joint stipulation to that effect, the Motion does not legitimately seek any form of relief, is irrelevant to any motion currently pending before the Court, and serves no legitimate purpose.
As with the Freedman Letter that this Court previously struck, the apparent intent of the Motion is to launder their public relations narrative into the press by abusing the Court’s docket. Ms. Lively respectfully requests that the Court exercise its inherent authority to control its own docket and strike the Motion as unnecessary, improper, and abusive. The Court may also wish to issue sanctions under its inherent authority to deter continuing misconduct in connection with the Wayfarer Parties’ future filings, as this Court has warned against.
Last, because the parties have agreed to dismiss Ms. Lively’s tenth and eleventh causes of action, Ms. Lively requests that the Court exercise its inherent authority and authority under Rule 15 to dismiss them without prejudice.