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Blake Lively is ending February on the up-beat, at least when it comes to her sprawling showdown with Justin Baldoni over sexual harassment and smear campaigns claims from It Ends With Us.
Giving Lively just enough discovery the wiggle room tio dig deeper, a federal judge has partially denied a motion by the Bryan Freedman repped Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios, CEO, financier and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel to squash subpoenas the actress’ lawyers wanted to serve on AT&T, T-Mobile, Verizon and others.
“The Subpoenas must be quashed to the extent they seek the phone records of the Wayfarer Parties,” ruled Judge Lewis J. Liman this morning, protecting Baldoni and crew’s personal privacy and question why Livley’s team needed to go back nearly two years when the retaliation matter in question occurred in mid-2024. This ruling is without prejudice to the Lively parties’ service of modified subpoenas more narrowly tailored to reveal relevant information,”
Attorneys for the Gossip Girl vet sought wide-ranging and then slightly downsized ability to discover more about who was talking to who about what in relation to the fallout from IEWUS. The Willkie Farr & Gallagher lawyers also want to know more about communications over the online attack Lively claims she suffered and continues to suffer from Nathan, Abel, and so-called “hired gun” Jed Wallace to stifle stories of Baldoni’s alleged misconduct on the Sony distribution domestic violence film.
Judge Liman closed one door, but opened another potentially revealing one in his mixed ruling Friday.
“Lively’s complaint already identifies many individuals who allegedly participated in a negative media campaign,” Judge Liman says of the actress’ New Year’s Eve filing, based on her December 20 complaint to California’s Civil Rights Department. against Baldoni and gang. “Lively may make discovery requests tailored to those individuals,” the judicial older brother of director Doug Liman adds in a big but specific pathway for Lively and Ryan Reynolds in the case. “She is permitted to use the tools of discovery to identify the contact information or telephone numbers for those individuals.”
Judge Liman went on to say Friday: “The Wayfarer Parties may assert a privacy interest in their own phone records, but they have not provided any basis for asserting an interest in the communications of non-parties.” He noted: “Therefore, the Wayfarer Parties’ motion is denied as to the portions of the Subpoenas which seek the phone records of non-parties.”
Over on Team Lively, who today enlarged their over PR team, the victory dance was on.
“What is Bryan Freedman hiding?” a spokesperson for Lively said to Deadline after the ruling was made public. “After promising to release all the ‘receipts,; Freedman ran into court to keep secret the phone records of who Baldoni, Heath, Sarowitz, Nathan, Wallace and Abel were calling during their retaliatory campaign.”
“So, instead of getting these records from the phone carriers the way we initially requested, the judge has ruled that if we simply submit more specific requests, we will be able to get the records we are seeking.” the spokesperson added. Today we will do that, we are submitting those requests directly to defendants involved and we look forward to seeing the records.”
On the flip side, Baldoni’s main lawyer Freedman saw Judge Liman’s ruling as a hard loss for Lively.
“The Court put a stop to Ms. Lively’s egregious attempt to invade our clients’ privacy,” the Hollywood litigator told Deadline today. “This is a big win. No matter how the Lively Parties may try to spin this decision, the Court saw their efforts for what they really are: a desperate fishing expedition intended to salvage their debunked claims long after they already savaged our clients’ reputations in the New York Times.”
At the same time, as Lively and Reynolds’ publicist Leslie Sloane seeks to have herself removed from Baldoni’s $400 million defamation and extortion action against the A-listers, a big PR stick has joined Team Blake.
Nick Shapiro will now be working with Willkie Farr & Gallagher and Manatt, Phelps & Phillips for Lively, Reynolds and to some extent Sloane. “The litigation team for Ms. Lively retained Mr. Shapiro to advise on the legal communications strategy for the ongoing sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit occurring in the Southern District of New York,” said Lively’s attorneys Friday.
An ex-chief of staff to Barack Obama era CIA Director John Brennan, since 2019 Shapiro has been a sharp spear for law firms, Tinseltown stars and agencies.
Lively’s hiring of Shapiro was first reported by Variety.
