Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s lawyers’ tempers were rising in court Monday as both sides raised new allegations in their hotly contested case.
Baldoni’s attorney Bryan Freedman pleaded with the judge to move the case forward as quickly as possible because his client was ‘suffering greatly’.
But Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb vehemently denied the claim that Lively was purposely dragging her heels in the lawsuit.
Judge Lewis Liman denied a move from Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds to gag Team Baldoni following the series of bombshell claims made by his legal team.
But Gottlieb said they intend to hit Baldoni with fresh allegations in Lively’s sexual harassment case, and insisted that protecting the couple’s celebrity friends was going to be ‘very important’.
Gottlieb told the court during the hearing that they intend to add ‘both claims and parties’ to a revised complaint which will be filed by Valentine’s Day.
Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s lawyers tempers are rising in court this morning as both sides raise new allegations, DailyMail.com can reveal
Freedman said that the defamation case Baldoni filed against the New York Times in California would be dismissed
During the hearing, Gottlieb attacked Freedman for making statements outside of court which had challenged the ‘character, integrity and truthfulness’ of Lively
The move came after Baldoni updated his own complaint in his $400 million defamation case against the Gossip Girl star which accused Lively of giving The New York Times advanced access to her complaint of sexual harassment during the filming of the movie It Ends With Us.
Gottlieb attacked Freedman for making statements outside of court which had challenged the ‘character, integrity and truthfulness’ of Lively.
After complaining, Lively’s lawyers were told was that ‘we (Lively) started it’ with the New York Times article, Gottlieb said.
Gottlieb cited an interview in People magazine in which Freedman accused Lively of a ‘pattern of bullying’.
In another statement Freedman claimed that if Lively really was sexually harassed she wouldn’t have returned to the film.
A skeptical Judge Liman said: ‘isn’t that what’s stated in his complaint?’
Freedman fired back that the statements had ‘not been a one way street’ and tried to walk the court through a number made by Lively’s lawyers
Gottlieb cited an interview People magazine in which Freedman accused Lively of a ‘pattern of bullying’
Gottlieb said no and that lawyers were ‘not supposed to launch attacks on another party’s character’.
He added that the leaking of raw footage from It Ends With Us was ‘particularly concerning’ because it could start an ‘arms race’ whereby lawyers have to appear in the media to fire back at every disclosure.
‘If there’s no guard rails in place….we (the attorneys) have to and go out on shows arguing on shows what a particular document or video means’.
Freedman fired back that the statements had ‘not been a one way street’ and tried to walk the court through a number made by Lively’s lawyers.
After listening to them, Judge Liman said Freedman ‘went a little bit further’ than Lively’s lawyers.
The judge said that he was adopting rules for lawyers known as Rule 3.6 which bars both of them from making extrajudicial statements that could influence the jury.
Gottlieb added that the leaking of raw footage from The Ends With Us was ‘particularly concerning’ because it could start an ‘arms race’ whereby lawyers have to appear in the media to fire back at every disclosure
Judge Liman said he was ‘hesitant to adopt it’ but after both sides agreed to it, he changed his mind.
He said: ‘My expectation is the parties will comply with their ethical obligations. I don’t expect this case to devolve into satellite litigation over the comments of a lawyer.
‘Both have said a lot in the pleadings that give the public plenty to feast upon’.
Freedman tried to protest and said: ‘Not to sound like a four year old fighting a four year old with ‘but they started it’ but once someone says something it becomes fact, there’s no way to fight against it.
‘You start to lose things without the ability to have the court’s adjudication. This was not started by us.’
Judge Liman also warned that if both sides didn’t behave themselves he could move the date of the trial forward from March next year.
Judge Liman also warned that if both sides didn’t behave themselves he could move the date of the trial forward from March next year
He said: ‘I’m not going to do that, I’m convinced the parties need the time for discovery.
‘But if it turns out that this ends up being litigated in the press in a way that would prejudice the opportunity of a fair trial…one of the tools the court has is to accelerate the date of the trial.
‘That’s something that is out there. I don’t want to do that.’
Earlier in the hearing, Gottlieb, who also represents Reynolds, said that he would be seeking a protective order through the court for future filings to protect the couple’s celebrity friends.
While he did not name Taylor Swift, she would likely be one of those affected as she was referred to in Baldoni’s complaint.
Gottlieb said: ‘We do believe there will be provisions in a protective order that will be appropriate in this case given the nature of the allegations and the high profile nature of some of the individuals who will be involved.
Blake Lively allegedly leveraged her friendship with superstar Taylor Swift to get her way behind the scenes of It Ends With Us, according to Justin Baldoni; pictured February 2024
Baldoni claimed Lively threatened to ‘change her mind’ about reaching out to pal Taylor to secure the use of her hit 2020 track My Tears Ricochet
‘There is a significant number of high profile individuals on both sides.
‘In particular addressing the interests and needs of third parties is going to be very important in this case.’
Gottlieb said he would plan to ‘seek protections we believe will be very important particularly in a case where there’s been a significant amount of leaking materials’.
He said: ‘We do intend to propose a protective order in this case.’
Judge Liman agreed and said that even before the other parties were named ‘you already got a lot of high profile people’ involved.
Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said he would be prepared to agree to the order.
Gottlieb also talked about discovery and how there will be a significant amount about how Baldoni and the other defendants used the media to ‘shape and push forward’ their retaliation strategy.
He also talked about finding material on ‘individuals who may have been paid for taking certain positions in public’.
Freedman, who represents Baldoni and his PR team, asked the judge in todays first court hearing to move the case forward as quickly as possible because his clients were ‘suffering greatly’.
This came after Blake Lively’s lawyer said their team intends to hit Justin Baldoni with fresh allegations in her sexual harassment case.
Freedman told the court: ‘We would really urge the court to allow discovery to take place and move forward because the harms are being suffered and have been suffered since the New York Times article came out.’
Freedman said that Wayfair had lost ‘hundreds of millions of dollars’ and that Melissa Nathan, Baldoni’s PR during the crisis over the movie, had lost clients.
He said: ‘When things hit the press, especially The New York Times, people sometimes react before there’s a judicial determination. These parties are suffering greatly.
‘It’s so important from our client’s perspective of having a future livelihood to move forward as quickly as possible.’
The decision to publish the site on Saturday comes after Baldoni amended his $400 million suit accusing Lively of giving The New York Times advance access to her sexual harassment complaint
Freedman said that the defamation case Baldoni filed against the New York Times in California would be dismissed. The matter would proceed through the New York cases because the newspaper had been added as a defendant in Baldoni’s case.
Judge Liman said the two cases filed in New York by Baldoni and Lively against each other had been combined.
Freedman later returned to the harm on Baldoni and his team were ‘devastated financially and emotionally and need the case to move as quickly as it can’.
But Judge Liman appeared irate as he asked Freedman why he had filed a 168 page timeline of the case with his updated complaint.
The judge said it seemed like the kind of thing that the ‘rules were designed to prevent’.
‘You can’t just give me a complaint and give me a whole bunch of documents’, the judge said.
The film at the heart of the feud, based on the 2016 bestseller by Colleen Hoover, was released in August and was a box office hit. It follows Lily Bloom, a florist played by Lively, who falls in love with a charming but abusive neurosurgeon played by Baldoni
Judge Liman asked: ‘What is the purpose of that attachment?’
Freedman claimed that it ‘formed the basis’ of the underlying claims.
Tensions rose as Gottlieb said that he would seek the document struck from the case.
He said that Freedman’s description of the material was ‘not accurate’.
Gottlieb said there were ‘lengthy paragraphs’ in a voice that wasn’t clear who was speaking and there was ‘no way’ for them to respond.
He also rejected the idea that Lively was dragging their heels.
Baldoni’s legal fight with Lively began after she sued him for sexual harassment just days before Christmas
A letter filed on Monday points out Freedman’s recent media appearances as well as a report of a new website being created by Baldoni’s team to ‘strategically release selected documents and communications’ between the two feuding co-stars
He said that ‘our clients have been subject since August to an ongoing campaign of retaliation for reporting sexual harassment’, adding that it had been ‘devastating’ for Lively and ‘continues to this day’.
Gottlieb said: ‘That harm has made our client very eager to move forward and have her day in court.’
Judge Liman rejected the idea that Gottlieb could stop Freedman from being the lawyer who conducted Lively’s deposition.
The judge said that ‘I don’t think that’s going to happen’ and that Gottlieb wouldn’t be the one to decide.
The now denied gag order was originally sent in a letter to the judge presiding over the case on January 27, the couple’s attorney requested a conference to highlight their ‘growing concerns’ over what they describe as lawyer Bryan Freedman’s alleged ‘extrajudicial misconduct’.
The filing, obtained exclusively by DailyMail.com, cited Freedman’s recent media appearances as well as a report of a new website being created by Baldoni’s team to ‘strategically release selected documents and communications’ between the two feuding co-stars.
Justin Baldoni launched his own website dedicated to defending himself against Blake Lively ‘s sexual harassment allegations
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Justin Baldoni publishes explosive new website telling 'his side' of Blake Lively lawsuit
The It Ends with Us co-stars were not obliged to attend the 11am pretrial conference in New York which marks the first step in their dueling $400 million defamation suits.
The 37-year-old actress has complained bitterly about Freedman making ‘harassing and retaliatory’ comments about her to the media and wants Judge Lewis Liman to silence the outspoken super lawyer.
Her mood will likely not have improved after Team Baldoni followed through Saturday with a pledge to upload new details of their headline-spewing legal fight to a specially created website.
Thelawsuitinfo.com went live with links to an amended version of Baldoni’s complaint and a ‘timeline of relevant events’ charting how the explosive feud developed during filming for their 2024 adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s acclaimed novel.
The cache includes surprising evidence that Lively’s Hollywood actor husband Ryan Reynolds seemed to like Baldoni before their relationship soured, texting him to say: ‘I’m excited for Blake to crack open her creative piggy bank with someone as dynamic as you … I happen to adore you, Justin.’
Another eye-popping message from Lively to 41-year-old Baldoni, discussing the script for the movie’s pivotal rooftop scene, reads: ‘If you knew me (in person) longer you’d have a sense of how flirty and yummy the ball busting will be.
Text exchanges between Reynolds and Baldoni have been included in the lawsuit. In this set of messages, Reynolds thanks the movie’s director and praises him for being a ‘wonderful collaborator’
Text messages from Reynolds reiterate how much their family adores Baldoni and how grateful they are for him working around Lively’s schedule
‘It’s my love language. Spicy and playfully bold, never with teeth.’
What Judge Liman, a Trump appointee, makes of Team Baldoni’s latest PR power move remains to be seen.
But Freedman and his co-counsel will argue that the two uploaded documents were merely published court filings already available to the public via the federal government’s Pacer website.
‘It’s important to point out that nobody is monetizing off this. It’s simply a landing page to have access to legal documents that are already public,’ a source told DailyMail.com.
‘This is far from a provocation. In fact, it’s yet more evidence that Justin and his team intend to be continually transparent.’
Judge Liman will also be asked to decide whether Freedman – a bulldog showbiz lawyer whose previous clients include Megyn Kelly, Tucker Carlson and Julia Roberts – should be allowed to grill Lively under oath on behalf of Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.
‘Counsel for Ms. Lively and Ryan Reynolds stated their objection to the Wayfarer Parties’ lead counsel conducting the deposition of Blake Lively,’ Baldoni attorney Kevin Fritz wrote to the court Friday.
‘Specifically, the Lively Parties’ counsel indicated that they object to Bryan J. Freedman personally, taking Ms Lively’s deposition, based upon unspecified statements made by Mr. Freedman.’
Fritz said the move was unwarranted, adding: ‘Parties to litigation simply do not have the right to dictate which of their opponents’ attorneys may or may not take their deposition.’