Justin Baldoni‘s lawyers responded Thursday to Blake Lively‘s attempt to throw out his defamation suit, arguing that a California law meant to protect harassment victims doesn’t apply to Lively’s “fabricated” claims.
The actor-director filed a $400 million lawsuit against Lively, his co-star, and her husband Ryan Reynolds in January, arguing that they set out to destroy his career and hijack his movie, “It Ends With Us,” with false allegations of harassment on set.
In a motion to dismiss the suit last month, Lively’s team argued that her allegations — which were first made in a California civil rights complaint that was shared with the New York Times — are protected by litigation privilege.
Lively’s lawyers also invoked the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, a 2023 law that protects harassment accusers from retaliatory defamation suits. The law provides immunity from suit and allows a prevailing defendant to claim attorneys’ fees and damages.
In response on Thursday, Baldoni’s lawyers noted that the protection applies only to harassment claims with a “reasonable basis” that are made “without malice.” They argue that Lively in fact made up the allegations, and that therefore the law does not apply.
“Lively fabricated her allegations of sexual harassment, either wholesale or by exaggerating benign (and not harassing) interactions in a concerted, malicious effort to seize control of the Film and later to restore her reputation after a well-publicized series of marketing missteps that sullied her reputation,” Baldoni’s lawyers argue.
Baldoni’s lead lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement that Lively’s team is attempting to set a “dangerous precedent” by using the law to undermine Baldoni’s right to sue under the First Amendment.
“Ms. Lively and her circle of Hollywood elites cannot prevent my clients from exercising their constitutional right to petition the court to clear their names from her false and harmful claims,” Freedman said. “This right protects not only Mr. Baldoni and the Wayfarer parties in this particular case, but all Americans in the future who have false accusations levied against them and seek relief from our justice system. This must stop here, and we will continue to fight against this blatant attempt to block access to the court system and to weaken our nation’s Constitution to serve those who are in the position of power.”
The response also contends that the litigation privilege does not apply because Lively first made the allegations well in advance of lodging the civil rights complaint.
Baldoni’s team also cites an interview Lively gave at the 2022 Forbes Power Women’s summit, which they argue supports their contention that she intended to seize creative control of the movie. In the interview, Lively stated that when she was starting out as as actor, “I knew that they just wanted me to show up and look cute and stand on a little pink sticker where I’m supposed to go and say what I’m supposed to say.
“But I also knew that like that wasn’t fulfilling for me — that I wanted to be part of the storytelling . . .. And sometimes I would have people who really resented that because they were like, ‘we just hired you to be an actor,’” she continued. “I wouldn’t reveal that I actually need to have authorship in order to feel fulfilled. So, I think that for them, sometimes that might have felt like a rug pull because you’re like, you’re trying to assert yourself into something that we didn’t hire you to.”
Baldoni’s team argues: “That is exactly what happened on the set of ‘It Ends With Us.’”