Judge Issues Attorneys’ Eyes Only Protective Order in Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni Legal Battle

A judge has made a ruling on Blake Lively’s request for a stronger protective order in her legal battle against Justin Baldoni.

On Thursday, Judge Lewis Liman issued a protective order “to protect the confidentiality of certain nonpublic and confidential material that will be exchanged pursuant to and during the course of discovery in this case.”

The protective order includes an “attorneys’ eyes only” (AEO) category, which was what Lively was fighting for to keep sensitive information confidential from public consumption.

In a court doc obtained by “Extra,” Liman wrote, “The designation ‘Attorneys’ Eyes Only’ shall only be utilized for Confidential Discovery Material of such a highly confidential and personal, sensitive, or proprietary nature that the revelation of such is highly likely to cause a significant competitive, business, commercial, financial, or privacy injury to the producing party.”

As for information can be designated in the AEO, Liman listed trade secrets, like marketing plans and confidential business projects, security measures, medical information, and “highly personal and intimate information about third parties.”

Social security numbers, phone numbers, addresses, and financial account numbers are also protected by the order. 

The judge explained, “These cases involve both business competitors and allegations of sexual harm. Discovery will necessarily include confidential and sensitive business and personal information. The risk of disclosure is great.”

However, the judge noted a caveat, writing, “The Court is unlikely to seal or otherwise afford confidential treatment to any Discovery Material introduced in evidence at trial or supporting or refuting any motion for summary judgment, even if such material has previously been sealed or designated as Confidential.”

Liman emphasized that the order doesn’t “confer blanket protections on all disclosures or responses to discovery and that the protection it affords only extends to the limited information or items that are entitled, under the applicable legal principles, to confidential treatment” and “does not create entitlement to file confidential information under seal.”

“The Moving Parties have shown good cause for a limited AEO provision and have shown that entering such a provision now is critical to the just and speedy (if not necessarily ‘inexpensive’) determination of the case,” Liman wrote about the increased level of confidentiality. 

After the judge’s decision, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told TMZ, “We are fully in agreement with the Court’s decision to provide a narrow scope of protections to categories such as private mental health records and personal security measures that have never been of interest to us as opposed to Ms. Lively's exceedingly over broad demand for documents for a 2.5 year period of time which the court rightly quashed."

Freedman added, “We remain focused on the necessary communications that will directly contradict Ms. Lively's unfounded accusations. We will oppose any efforts by Ms. Lively and her team to hamper our clients’ ability to defend against her attacks by incorrectly categorizing important information as 'trade secrets,' especially considering there were no issues in providing these communications willingly to The New York Times."

Lively’s team released a statement of their own to the outlet, saying, “Today, the Court rejected the Wayfarer Parties' objections and entered the protections needed to ensure the free flow of discovery material without any risk of witness intimidation or harm to any individual’s security. With this order in place, Ms. Lively will move forward in the discovery process to obtain even more of the evidence that will prove her claims in Court."

Last week, Blake’s lawyer made a major push for the protective order, wanting to keep the actress and her husband Ryan Reynolds’ texts with celebrities as part of the AEO, saying, “There is a significant chance of irreparable harm if marginal conversations with high profile individuals with no relevance to the case were to fall into wrong hands.”

She added, “There are 100 million reasons for these parties to leak information because the PR value is greater than complying with the court’s orders.”