Blake Lively Gets Deposition Cut From Court Docket As Judge Thwacks Baldoni Lawyers: Served 'Their Own Public-Relations Purposes'
Already fighting this week with his insurance companies over legal fees in the It Ends with Us sexual harassment and retaliation battle with Lively, Baldoni, his Wayfarer Studios execs and lawyers also just got their knuckles very publicly rapped for overplaying their hand.
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'The Wayfarer Parties' attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition—after citing only two pages of it in the Letter—served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal,' admonished Judge Lewis Liman on Friday in a stinging order agreeing with Lively's motion to strike to keep her July 31 deposition sealed, out of the court docket and out of the headlines and posts.
Offering nothing yet on the Another Simple Favor star's attorneys additional recent request for sanctions against Baldoni lawyer Bryan Freedman for allegedly 'publicly slandering' Lively, Judge Liman today was responding to the actress' August 4 filing to strike after her IEWU director/co-star's team sent a letter with a small portion of her well-publicized depo in it and an accompanying sealed and uncertified transcript. On August 6, after also taking the slings and arrows of accusations of leaks to tabloids and others about the actual deposition and who was there (Ryan Reynolds and on the other side of the table, most of Baldoni's inner circle and fellow defendants), attorney Kevin Fritz essentially countered that the lady doth protest too much.
'The deposition transcript records Ms. Lively's own words,' the Meister, Seelig & Finn partner pointed out in a filed letter of his own to Judge Liman, mocking the use of the term 'rough draft' in the initial filing, among other things. 'Ms. Lively contends that the transcript must be stricken based on her speculation that it was filed for the 'purpose of the transcript into the public domain as fodder for [their] media campaign.' The transcript, however, was filed under seal and Ms. Lively has the option of moving to keep the document sealed; although it is puzzling why she seeks to conceal her own testimony in an action in which she is the plaintiff.'
Less than eight months before the high wire trial in this high profile matter kicks off in New York City in federal court, Judge Liman today really wasn't picking up what Fritz and Team Baldoni were trying to put down.
'Even if the cited deposition portions were relevant or provided support for the Wayfarer Parties' arguments—both of which are far from clear—the Wayfarer Parties have not even attempted to argue that the entire deposition was relevant,' he wrote in Friday's four-page order to strike the attachment 'Nor could they,' Judge Liman went on to say. 'The conclusion is inescapable that the Wayfarer Parties filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the Wayfarer Parties could then use Lively's response for their own public-relations purposes,'
Then there's the subtext kicker: 'The Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in.'
Perhaps out in the August sun, neither reps for Lively or Baldoni responded to Deadline's request for comment on today's order. Then again, with nothing from the court yet on the sanctions move by Lively's side against Baldoni's top lawyer, maybe everyone being circumspect in anticipation of what's next in a case that since December last year always seems to provided more gristle at every turn – with more likely to come.
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