Latest news with #Rule11
Economic Times
23-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Economic Times
Blake Lively hits back hard, moves to sanction Justin Baldoni's team over explosive and improper Taylor Swift extortion claims
Blake Lively is taking legal action against Justin Baldoni's team, alleging they falsely accused her of trying to extort Taylor Swift. Lively's legal team claims these accusations are baseless and intended to smear her reputation. She's also seeking records related to alleged harassment during the "It Ends With Us" shoot, claiming the investigation was delayed and biased. Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads Why is Blake Lively calling the accusations 'wilfully improper'? What are the details of the legal motion Blake Lively filed? Why does Lively claim the investigation wasn't handled properly? Tired of too many ads? Remove Ads What did the judge say about the letter from Baldoni's team? FAQs Tensions are escalating between Blake Lively and her It Ends With Us co-star and director, Justin Baldoni Blake Lively is seeking legal action against Justin Baldoni's legal team for making a false claim about Taylor their letter last week alleging that her team attempted to extort Taylor Swift in return for her public support, Blake Lively filed a motion Monday to sanction her "It Ends With Us" co-star and director Justin Baldoni and his team, as per a report by The has filed for sanctions in response to what she describes as a "wilfully improper" accusation against Taylor Gottlieb, Blake's lawyer, swiftly retorted in a statement that all of these alleged accusations are categorically denied by us; they are utterly disconnected from reality and cowardly attributed to purportedly anonymous sources, as per a report by The legal team claims the allegations are baseless and intended to smear her for the actress claim that claims made by Baldoni's attorney Bryan Freedman have "no reasonable basis in law and clearly were brought for an improper purpose" and that they were filed as a "obvious" means of "sowing harassing media narratives against Ms. Lively."The 30-page motion was filed Monday in New York's Southern District court filing stated, "These public attacks, along with the Rule 11 Plaintiffs' numerous claims against Ms. Lively that have no legal or factual basis, are wilfully improper and warrant sanctions,' as per a report by The actress' legal team filed a second motion on Monday to obtain documents related to the "It Ends With Us" probe into the alleged sexual harassment and retaliation campaign of its Lively's "Fourth Set of Requests for Production," Lively's team filed a letter motion to "compel" Wayfarer Studios and the "It Ends With Us" film to produce materials. The motion sought witness recordings and documents from Wayfarer's "alleged 'neutral' workplace investigation into Lively's sexual harassment and retaliation claims.""When Ms. Lively first expressed her concerns in May 2023, Wayfarer failed to look into them, even though it was legally required to do so," the four-page letter sent to Judge Lewis J. Liman stated."She may have also been spared the retaliatory smear campaign by Wayfarer and its Co-Defendants if her complaints had been promptly investigated, as required by law," the letter Wayfarer put off starting this investigation for years, until late January 2025. Wayfarer had already publicly and vehemently refuted Ms. Lively's claims by then, and she and a number of other people were sued for $400 million for making the same claims that are currently the focus of this "neutral" in widely reported media interviews by January, its attorney had repeatedly accused Ms. Lively of requested investigation items were described as "highly relevant" and required to "ensure that witness engagement has been proper and has been put at issues by Wayfarer" by Lively's team at the end of the lawyers moved to have the letter removed from the court's records on Thursday, and their request was approved."It took the court less than 24 hours to see through Mr. Freedman's irrelevant, improper, and inflammatory accusations, strike them, remove them from the court, and warn Mr. Freedman that further misconduct may be met with sanctions," a spokesperson at the time said in a letter's only goal is to "promote public scandal" by making baseless accusations against Lively and her attorney based on knowledge and to Lively's legal team, Baldoni's lawyers falsely accused her of attempting to extort Taylor Swift, describing the claims as legally baseless and intended to harm her reputation. She is now asking the court to sanction them for what she calls a "harassing media narrative."Lively claims she faced sexual harassment and retaliation while filming and calls the production's late and allegedly biased investigation a "charade." She wants documents and recordings to show that her concerns were ignored and that the investigation was not truly objective.
New Indian Express
21-05-2025
- New Indian Express
Madras HC orders reinstatement of employee of ordnance factory after 15 year battle
CHENNAI: The Madras High Court has ordered the reinstatement of an employee of the Ordnance Factory with lesser punishment almost 15 years after he was asked to take compulsory retirement on charges of doubtful integrity after finding him keeping in possession a computer floppy containing copies of official communications without any authorisation. A division bench of Justices MS Ramesh and N Senthilkumar passed the orders recently to reinstate K Saravanan, an upper division clerk employed with the Heavy Alloy Penetrative Project, Tiruchy, an arm of the Ordnance Factory Board. He was asked to go on compulsory retirement on July 26, 2011 by the management for violation of the Rule 11 of Central Civil Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964. He approached the CAT against the order. The tribunal found that there was nothing to question the employee's integrity and the punishment was 'shockingly disproportionate and vindictive'. It set aside the order of compulsory retirement with the rider of a lesser punishment. During arguments in the high court, the management submitted that the Ordnance Factory is linked to national safety and the charges were serious. The bench reasoned, 'Even assuming that the photocopies were in the personal possession of the employee, no consequential prejudice was caused to the management, since he had not shared such official communications with any third person. In this view of the matter, both the charges can only be held to be minor in nature, which may not warrant the maximum penalty.' The bench ordered his reinstatement with a minor penalty within three months.
Yahoo
19-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Yahoo
Blake Lively Files to Sanction Justin Baldoni Team Over ‘Willfully Improper' Claim of Taylor Swift Extortion
Blake Lively has filed a motion requesting her 'It Ends With Us' co-star and director Justin Baldoni and his team be hit with sanctions after their claims that Lively extorted Taylor Swift in exchange for her public support. In Lively's legal team's the 30-page motion, which was filed Monday in New York's Southern District Court, they state Baldoni's claims have 'no reasonable basis in law and clearly were brought for an improper purpose' and that the claims were filed as an 'obvious' vehicle 'to seed harassing media narratives against Ms. Lively.' 'These public attacks, combined with the Rule 11 Plaintiffs filing numerous claims against Ms. Lively without any basis in law or fact, is willfully improper and warrants sanctions,' the legal document read. In a second motion Monday, the actress' legal team filed to acquire records of the 'It Ends With Us' investigation into its filmmakers' purported sexual harassment. Lively's team submitted the letter motion to 'compel' Wayfarer Studios and the 'It Ends With Us' movie to 'to produce materials' in response to Lively's 'Fourth Set of Requests for Production,' which seeks documents and witness recordings Wayfarer allegedly 'purported 'neutral' workplace investigation into Lively's sexual harassment and retaliation claims.' 'This so-called 'Investigation' is a disingenuous charade. Wayfarer failed (although it was legally required) to investigate Ms. Lively's concerns when she first raised them in May 2023,' the four-page letter submitted to Judge Lewis J. Liman read. 'Had it done so, Ms. Lively would have participated in such an investigation, and it would have substantiated the sexual harassment she suffered while on the set of the film 'It Ends With Us' (the 'Film'), which included (among other things) Mr. Baldoni's unsolicited discussions about his addiction to pornography and sex life, and his improvised intimacy scenes without Ms. Lively's consent.' 'If her complaints were promptly investigated, as the law requires, she may also have been spared the retaliatory smear campaign by Wayfarer and its Co-Defendants,' the letter went on. 'Instead, Wayfarer waited years, until late January 2025, to initiate this Investigation. By that time, Wayfarer had already forcefully publicly denied Ms. Lively's allegations and sued her and several others for $400 million for making the very same allegations that are now the subject of this 'neutral' investigation (for a workplace that no longer exists, the Film set). What's more, by January, its counsel had repeatedly called Ms. Lively a liar in widely-circulated media interviews.' By the end of the letter, Lively's team referred to the requested investigation items as 'highly relevant' and 'necessary' for Lively's team and court to 'ensure that witness engagement has been proper, and have been put at issues by Wayfarer.' Lively's latest hit back at Baldoni comes after Baldoni's attorney Bryan Freedman has claimed in a new letter that Blake Lively's lawyer threatened to release Taylor Swift's 'private text messages of a personal nature' unless the singer agreed to delete supposedly incriminating texts. Swift's attorney Mike Gottlieb quickly responded, 'This is categorically false. We unequivocally deny all of these so-called allegations, which are cowardly sourced to supposed anonymous sources, and completely untethered from reality.' On Thursday, Lively's attorneys filed a motion to have the letter stricken from the record, which was granted. A spokesperson at the time said in a statement, 'It took the court less than 24 hours to see through Mr. Freedman's irrelevant, improper and inflammatory accusations, strike them, remove them from the court and warn Mr. Freedman that further misconduct may be met with sanctions.' Judge Liman wrote in his ruling, 'The Letter is improper and must be stricken. It is irrelevant to any issue before this Court and does not request any action from this Court … The sole purpose of the Letter is to 'promote public scandal' by advancing inflammatory accusations, on information and belief, against Lively and her counsel.' The post Blake Lively Files to Sanction Justin Baldoni Team Over 'Willfully Improper' Claim of Taylor Swift Extortion appeared first on TheWrap.
Yahoo
25-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Superior Court judge rejects Chevron's motion to dismiss landmark climate change lawsuit
The Chevron logo is displayed at a Chevron gas station on May 22, 2023 in Burbank, Calif. A Rhode Island Superior Court judge on April 22 rejected Chevron's attempt to gut the state's complaint against Chevron and 20 other oil and gas companies named in a 2018 lawsuit brought by Rhode Island's attorney general on alleged procedural violations. (Photo by) Rhode Island's first-in-the-nation state lawsuit against fossil fuel companies continues into its seventh year after surviving an attempt by one of the defendants to gut the state's case on alleged procedural violations. Rhode Island Associate Justice William E. Carnes in an April 22 decision rejected all of the arguments made by Chevron Corporation. Chevron was one of 21 oil and gas companies sued for its role in exacerbating climate change in a landmark state climate change lawsuit brought by then-Attorney General Peter Kilmartin in 2018. The complaint seeks damages from fossil fuel companies on the assertion that for each company, 'a substantial portion of fossil fuel products are or have been extracted, refined, transported, traded, distributed, marketed, promoted, manufactured, sold, and/or consumed in Rhode Island.' After years of appeals, concluding after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case in April 2023, Chevron returned to state court seeking to have a portion of the case thrown out. The company contended the state failed to investigate or prove that any fossil fuel extraction, refinement or production occurred in Rhode Island, violating a clause of state court civil procedure known as Rule 11. Attorneys for both sides made their case before Carnes in an April 16 hearing in Providence County Superior Court. Carnes in his 15-page decision concluded there was no evidence of improper actions by the state — at least, not enough to meet the 'high bar' of imposing penalties for Rule 11 violations. 'The Court must balance competing concerns when evaluating whether to issue sanctions because sanctions 'can haunt an attorney throughout his or her career' with 'ramifications [that] go far beyond the particular case,'' Carnes wrote, quoting from a 2017 state Supreme Court decision reversing a lower court's sanctions against an attorney in the case. Carnes' rejection of Chevron's pleadings does not signal an outcome on the overall decision in the case, including potentially awarding damages from fossil fuel companies. The next hearing in the case is slated for May 8, according to the public court docket. Timothy Rondeau, a spokesperson for the Rhode Island Office of the Attorney General, praised Carnes' decision. 'We are grateful for Judge Carnes' careful consideration, evaluation, and ultimate conclusion that the State acted properly,' Rondeau said in a statement Thursday. 'We look forward to continuing to fight on behalf of Rhode Islanders and for environmental justice.' While legal precedent demands a specific standard to penalize attorneys for procedural violations, there is no formal court ruling or history on the use of 'and/or,' another key part of Chevron's legal arguments. Attorneys for Chevron insisted the state's use of 'and/or' in its original complaint meant it must prove that all of listed fossil fuel activities — manufacturing, refinement, sales and more — were performed by each company in Rhode Island. Attorneys for the state countered that the 'and/or' caveat meant at least one, but not all, of the listed activities, could be proven. Carnes' conclusion? 'Rhode Island has not formally adopted any legal precedent around the use of 'and/or,' and, even if Rhode Island courts had done so, the State's Complaint is not improper because the contested allegations are well grounded in fact based on the State's interpretation of paragraph 21(g) and Chevron's filings with the State of Rhode Island,' he wrote. He also pushed back against Chevron's citations from the websites of the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources and the U.S. Department of Energy, both of which said there is no oil production or refinement in Rhode Island. Carnes' noted that the federal information was outdated — based on data from 2011 to 2014 — while the state website information does not specify if petroleum-based fuels were ever produced in Rhode Island, simply that they are not locally produced at present. Other exhibits filed by attorneys for the state, including business filings with the Rhode Island Department of State, suggest Chevron and its subsidiaries have done sales business in Rhode Island as recently as 2024. 'It cannot be fairly said that the allegations which Chevron has moved to strike have no relation to the controversy because the State provided evidence that Chevron may have had Rhode Island manufacturing, refining, and other raw material activities,' Carnes wrote. Carnes on April 16 ordered Chevron to hand over additional documentation regarding its business activity in Rhode Island. The company has 90 days to turn over evidence to the state for its case. Judges in four other states, including New Jersey, Maryland, Delaware and New York have tossed similar state, county or city-level challenges against fossil fuel companies. But dozens more remain under consideration in state-level courts across the country, including in Massachusetts. And in March, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the bid led by Republican state attorneys general that would have blocked these lawsuits from proceeding. Theodore Boutrous, an attorney with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in California representing Chevron, pointed to the dismissals in other state courts in a response Thursday to Carnes' decision. 'As the New Jersey Superior Court held in dismissing New Jersey's similar state lawsuit, 'the leading and most persuasive case supporting dismissal is the Second Circuit decision in City of New York,'' Boutrous said in an emailed statement. 'There, the federal appeals court rejected the availability of state tort law in the climate change context.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
15-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
R.I. judge orders Chevron to hand over documents in state climate change lawsuit
The Frank Licht Judicial Complex, which includes Providence County Superior Court, on Benefit Street in Providence. (Photo by Michael Salerno/Rhode Island Current) The fate of Rhode Island's first-in-the-nation lawsuit against fossil fuel companies rests in one state judge's hands, following a two-hour hearing in Providence County Superior Court Tuesday morning. Associate Justice William E. Carnes opted not to make an immediate ruling on Chevron Corporation's push to have the case tossed on alleged procedural violations, noting the 'sheer volume of materials' in the seven-year long case. While Carnes postponed a ruling, he noted several shortcomings in the arguments Chevron's lawyers presented, including the lack of local precedent for what the oil and gas company argues was a 'shotgun pleading' that relies on the same phrasing for each of the 21 companies named in the lawsuit. Former Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Kilmartin in the 2018 complaint sought damages from a host of multinational oil and gas companies, including Chevron, based on the grounds that for each, 'a substantial portion of fossil fuel products are or have been extracted, refined, transported, traded, distributed, marketed, promoted, manufactured, sold, and/or consumed in Rhode Island.' A series of appeals challenging a state court's authority regarding climate change impacts from national fossil fuel companies ended in April 2023 when the U.S. Supreme Court declined to take up the case and sent it back to Rhode Island. On trial in landmark R.I. climate change lawsuit: the meaning of 'and/or' Chevron's attorneys are now seeking to have the entire case tossed on the grounds that the state failed to investigate or prove that any fossil fuel extraction, refinement or production occurred in Rhode Island, violating a clause of state court civil procedure known as Rule 11. 'It's a ludicrous allegation that we were extracting fossil fuels in a state where fossil fuels were never extracted,' Gerald Petros, a Providence attorney representing Chevron, said during Tuesday's hearing. But the state, which has brought in San Francisco law firm Sher Edling LLP to help its case, contended that the 'and/or' in the complaint covered its bases. Even if Chevron never produced or refined oil in Rhode Island, 18 years of business filings with the Rhode Island Department of State and records of local TV and print advertisements prove its local activity, according to exhibits included in court documents. While the state's investigation has yielded some proof of Chevron's local activity, the company has refused to hand over private information relating to its business activity, sales and advertising in Rhode Island, making it impossible for the state to fully substantiate its claim, Matt Edling, partner at Sher Edling, said during the hearing. 'We know this evidence exists but we don't know the depth of it,' Edling said. While Carnes delayed a ruling on Chevron's motion to toss the complaint under alleged procedural violations, he granted in part a request by the state to compel the oil and gas company to hand over documentation of its business activity. Carnes limited the scope of discovery to date back to the year named in the complaint — 1965 — rather than the earlier 1950 start date the state requested. Carnes also ruled that subsidiaries and affiliates of Chevron Corp. were not subject to the court-ordered document sharing based on a 2022 Rhode Island Supreme Court decision. And, as it relates to evidence of natural gas activities, Chevron only has to share records of business that affected consumers, according to Carnes' order. Timothy Rondeau, a spokesperson for Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha's office, issued a statement Tuesday in response to requests for comment. 'We appreciate the Court's thoughtful review in granting this order, and we look forward to securing relief on behalf of Rhode Islanders and the environment,' Rondeau said in an email. Theodore Boutrous, a partner with Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher LLP in California which is also representing Chevron, shared the exact same statement provided a day earlier when asked for comment on Carnes' order. Chevron has 90 days to hand over the required evidence to the state. Another hearing on the case is scheduled for May 8, by which time Carnes said he expects to have issued an order on Chevron's Rule 11 motion. In closing remarks, Carnes pledged to be fair to both sides and move as quickly as he could. 'I am going to try to keep a cool, clear head and try to keep as much acrimony out of this as possible,' he said. 'I know there's a lot of water to come over the dam.' SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
