Justin Baldoni’s Defamation Suit Against Lively, Reynolds, NY Times Has Been Dismissed

Defamation

from the clean-sweep dept

While the Justin Baldoni legal fight with Blake Lively is still going on, one half of the dispute has been thrown in the dumpster… for now. If you’re not up on the case, here is the TL;DR version. Baldoni and Lively costarred in the movie It Ends With Us. Lively filed a claim of workplace harassment for inappropriate behavior on set by Baldoni, leading to an explosive public feud between the two. Eventually, Lively sued Baldoni over the claims, with Baldoni countersuing her and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for defamation and other claims. He also sued the New York Times for its reporting on the dispute. Baldoni’s legal team engaged in some fairly silly behavior on top of all of that. We said at the time that the suit against the New York Times in particular appeared destined for the aforementioned dumpster when the judge paused discovery to consider the Times’ motion to dismiss.

Well, it seems I was more correct there than I had intended to be. The judge has not only dismissed the suit against the New York Times, but Baldoni’s suit against Lively and Reynolds as well. As to his claims of defamation and that Lively stole the movie out from under him and his company, the judge had this to say.

Baldoni’s lawsuit centred on two claims: that Lively “stole the film” from him and his company Wayfarer by threatening not to promote it, and that she and others promoted a false narrative that Baldoni sexually assaulted her and launched a smear campaign against her, Judge Liman explained in his opinion.

But Baldoni and his production company “have not adequately alleged that Lively’s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions”, he wrote.

Additionally, the judge wrote, Baldoni and his company had not proved defamation because the “Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Lively is responsible for any statements other than the statements” in her lawsuit, which are privileged.

Defamation is notoriously hard to prove in court in America — for good reason. Of course, it gets all the more difficult when you can’t be bothered to make such a claim about specific statements other than those in the actual lawsuit itself. The lack of valid claims against Reynolds and others likewise resulted those suits being dismissed as well.

And, really, attempting to sue over the time-honored Hollywood tradition of wrestling for creative control over a movie is more than a bit laughable.

As for the New York Times, the court essentially told Baldoni that he can’t sue the media just because he doesn’t like their good faith reporting.

The judge also determined that evidence did not show that the New York Times “acted with actual malice” in publishing their story, dismissing that $250m suit as well.

“The alleged facts indicate that the Times reviewed the available evidence and reported, perhaps in a dramatized manner, what it believed to have happened,” he wrote. “The Times had no obvious motive to favor Lively’s version of events.”

Now, you can read the entire judgment below for yourself, if you choose. It is quite long and, frankly, filled with content in the early pages that is not particularly flattering to Lively and Reynolds. That’s only important insofar as the court appears to have looked at the facts in a clear-eyed manner before pivoting to what the actual law says about the various claims Baldoni made, which ended up lacking merit.

Now, while the court did give Baldoni leave to refile some of his claims, but only those that revolve around contract interference. And here’s where I’d like to remind you that we started covering this whole celebrity fiasco as a Streisand Effect story. Baldoni could have attempted to manage what is admittedly a difficult situation for him, self-made or otherwise, in a quiet and respectful matter. Instead, he went legal and very, very public with this whole dispute and, as a result, the dismissal of his claims is equally public.

It’s not a good look. At this point, hard as it may be, the best course would probably be to not file some amended suit or appeal the decision. Given how Baldoni’s side has behaved thus far, however, I doubt they’ll take that course.

Filed Under: blake lively, defamation, justin baldoni, ryan reynolds
Companies: ny times