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Ever since Blake Lively filed a lawsuit against Justin Baldoni, accusing him of s*xual misconduct, things have been unfolding, making the whole situation more chaotic. After the Gossip Girl made the allegations, It Ends With Us director/actor denied everything and counter-attacked with another lawsuit of $400 million against the actress and her team. He accused her of defamation and other things.
Now, Lively’s lawyers have filed a statement to court asking the judge to dismiss Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit against her. They cited some pointers in the statement amid their ongoing legal drama. Scroll ahead to find out.
Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, Blake Lively’s lawyers, in a court statement stated, “This lawsuit is a profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court. 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.”
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They further continued, “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 … 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.”
A source close to Blake Lively told US Weekly, “The painful reality is that Ms. Lively is not alone in being sued for defamation after speaking up about being sexually harassed at work. That is entirely why California recently enacted AB 933, the Privileged Communications Incident of Sexual Assault, Harassment, or Discrimination Act, which codified California civil code section 47.1. While Ms. Lively has suffered greatly by speaking up and pursuing legal claims, it is important for other people to know that they have protections and that there is a specific law that expressly protects them from being silenced or financially ruined by a defamation lawsuit because they had the courage to speak up.”
After Lively’s dismissal motion surfaced, Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, reacted to it. He called out her recent response as ‘abhorrent examples of abusing our legal system.’ Freedman further said that laws shouldn’t be twisted as per one’s whim, and it’s not curated for the privileged people so that they can fit their personal agenda. He continued, “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.”
Well, what do you think of this whole scenario?
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