Kevin Fritz, one of Justin Baldoni’s lawyers, filed the letter requesting that Judge Lewis J. Liman enforce “an order compelling Blake Lively to identify her medical and mental health care providers.” This would also have required Lively’s signed consent for access to details from her therapist and relevant medical information. In Lively’s decision to drop her emotional distress claim, she effectively refused “to disclose the information and documents needed to disprove that she suffered any emotional distress,” according to Fritz.
Later in the letter, Fritz further insinuated that the claim’s elimination was part of an unfair legal strategy.
“In other words, Ms. Lively wants to simultaneously: (a) refuse to disclose the information and documents needed to disprove that she suffered any emotional distress and/or that the Wayfarer Parties were the cause; and (b) maintain the right to re-file her IED Claims at an unknown time in this or some other court after the discovery window has closed,” the filing reads.
Meanwhile, Lively’s team vehemently denied the accusation.
“To suggest that Ms. Lively has ‘refused’ to produce anything (in either her written discovery responses, in the parties’ conference, or anytime thereafter) in connection with these claims is intentionally misleading to the Court and their intended audience for this false record: the public,” Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb, responded in the letter.
Further, Hudson and Gottlieb told People: “Once again, this is a routine part of the litigation process that is being used as a press stunt. We are doing what trial lawyers do: preparing our case for trial by streamlining and focusing it; they are doing what they do: desperately seeking another tired round of tabloid coverage.”
Frankly, even if Lively did drop the claim because its substantiation relied on her releasing deeply personal documents, I wouldn’t blame her. You might remember that Amber Heard’s medical records were made public in Depp v. Heard, and we all saw how that worked out. Despite Heard’s therapist’s notes that confirmed he did, in fact, abuse her, Depp’s attorneys got them thrown out, and he won the trial. In our current judicial system, proving emotional distress is an involved task that obviously gives way to violations of privacy, in most cases, in vain. That said, Lively’s attorneys likely shouldn’t have let it get this far in the first place. Now, the optics, thanks to Baldoni’s attorneys’ public urgings, are that Lively can’t prove the impact of their client’s alleged actions. Go figure.
It’s been a busy month in the It Ends With Us back-and-forth. According to reports, it’s still “radio silence” between Lively and her former best friend, Taylor Swift. Late last month, Swift’s subpoena was withdrawn after “information was voluntarily provided” to Baldoni’s lawyers. Should you have forgotten, Swift was named in Baldoni’s suit in a series of text messages between Lively and Baldoni in which Lively referred to herself as “Khaleesi” and Ryan Reynolds and Swift as her “dragons”—with the implication being that Baldoni would be protected should their working relationship continue to be copacetic.
According to Baldoni’s attorneys, Lively’s legal team contacted Swift after the dueling suits made headlines and demanded “that Ms. Swift release a statement of support for Ms. Lively, intimating that, if Ms. Swift refused to do so, private text messages of a personal nature in Ms. Lively’s possession would be released.” Those accusations were later struck from the record after Lively’s team called them “baseless, unnecessary, improper and abusive.”
I simply cannot wait to see what happens next. Note: That was written with sarcasm.
