Justin Baldoni’s Lawyer Bites Back at Blake Lively After Her Dismissal Request

Justin Baldoni’s legal team has fired back after Blake Lively filed a motion to dismiss herself from his $400M defamation lawsuit.

In a statement to People magazine, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman said, “Ms. Lively's recent motion to dismiss herself from the self-concocted disaster she initiated is one of the most abhorrent examples of abusing our legal system. Stringent rules are put into place to protect the innocent and allow individuals to rightfully defend themselves. Laws are not meant to be twisted and curated by privileged elites to fit their own personal agenda.”

Bryan also referenced Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds, who filed for a dismissal from the lawsuit earlier this week.

He said, “As we said yesterday in response to Mr. Reynolds' same cowardly measures, we will continue to hold Ms. Lively accountable for her actions of pure malice which include falsely accusing my clients of harassment and retaliation. Her fantastical claims will be swiftly debunked as discovery moves forward, easily disproved with actual, evidentiary proof.”

Lively’s team then bashed Freedman’s statement, telling Us Weekly, “The late night flurry of answers — instead of motions to dismiss — reveal that [Baldoni and Wayfarer defendants] know that they have no legal arguments remotely capable of dismissing our complaint. They have instead accepted that Ms. Lively’s complaint states valid legal claims that they could not muster a single reason to dismiss. Meanwhile, every person and entity the Baldoni-Wayfarer team sued has moved to dismiss their meritless PR stunt.”

On Thursday, Blake requested to be removed from the lawsuit, using California law to argue her case.

Lively’s team claims that Baldoni’s federal lawsuit was filed in retaliation for her sexual harassment allegations against him.

“It is… a blunt public relations instrument designed to further the Wayfarer Parties’ sinister campaign to ‘bury’ and ‘destroy’ Ms. Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment and retaliation,” Lively’s team added. “The Court should dismiss the FAC and — as required by California law — hold further proceedings to calculate an appropriate award of Ms. Lively’s attorneys’ fees, treble damages for the harm this meritless lawsuit has inflicted on her, and punitive damages against each of the Wayfarer Parties.”

Lively cited California’s Assembly Bill 933, which was signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023.

According to the bill, “Existing law provides that libel is a false and unprivileged written publication that injures the reputation and that slander is a false and unprivileged publication, orally uttered, that injures the reputation, as specified. Existing law makes certain publications and communications privileged and therefore protected from civil action, including complaints of sexual harassment by an employee, without malice, to an employer based on credible evidence and communications between the employer and interested persons regarding a complaint of sexual harassment.”

Assembly Bill 993 “would include among those privileged communications a communication made by an individual, without malice, regarding an incident of sexual assault, harassment, or discrimination, as defined, and would specify the attorney’s fees and damages available to a prevailing defendant in any defamation action brought against that defendant for making that communication.”

Blake’s team slammed Baldoni’s lawsuit further, writing, “The Wayfarer Parties’ vengeful and rambling lawsuit against Blake Lively is a profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court. The law prohibits weaponizing defamation lawsuits, like this one, to retaliate against individuals who have filed legal claims or have publicly spoken out about sexual harassment and retaliation. The right to seek legal redress and the right of the press to report on it are sacred principles that are protected by multiple privileges, including the litigation and fair report privileges, which are absolute. Moreover, by choosing to bring their claims under California law, the Wayfarer Parties have voluntarily subjected their entire lawsuit to the sexual harassment privilege in the recently enacted California Civil Code Section 47.1 (“Section 47.1”), which bars retaliatory lawsuits based on public disclosures of sexual harassment and related allegations, including disclosures to the press. Given all of these protections, the Wayfarer Parties’ chief complaint that Ms. Lively and others supposedly “conspired” with The New York Times is barred as a matter of law – she was legally entitled to file her complaint and disclose it to the public.”

Lively’s lawyers Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson told "Extra," “This lawsuit is a profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court.” 

They added, “California law now expressly prohibits suing victims who make the decision to speak out against sexual harassment or retaliation, whether in a lawsuit or in the press. This meritless and retaliatory lawsuit runs head first into three legal obstacles, including the litigation, fair report, and sexual harassment privileges, the latter of which contains a mandatory fee shifting provision that will require the likes of billionaire Steve Sarowitz, Wayfarer Studios, and others that brought frivolous defamation claims against Ms. Lively to pay damages. In other words, in an epic self-own, the Wayfarer Parties’ attempt to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ has only created more liability for them, and deservedly so, given what they have done.”  

In December, Lively filed a legal complaint with the California Civil Rights Department claiming Baldoni sexually harassed her on set. She also accused him of a smear campaign in a New York Times article. In return, he sued The New York Times, which denied any wrongdoing. 

Lively then sued Baldoni, and he fired back with a $400M defamation lawsuit against her. Both parties have also denied any wrongdoing.