Countersuit? What countersuit? Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds are seeking to dismiss Justin Baldoni’s $400m lawsuit against them, as confirmed to a federal judge yesterday.
Variety reported the latest update in the seemingly never ending It Ends With Us drama, claiming that Lively and Reynolds told a federal judge on Thursday that they will seek to dismiss the defamation lawsuit Justin Baldoni filed against them earlier this month.
Monday marks the first time that attorneys for both sides of the legal battle — Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds v Baldoni — will properly meet for a hearing in court.
“The Lively-Reynolds Parties intend to move to dismiss Plaintiffs’ complaint,” attorney Michael J. Gottlieb told the judge ahead of the hearing on Monday.
Gottlieb is representing Lively and Reynolds and has a high profile history of taking on cases that aim to combat disinformation and conspiracy theories.
In a rare moment of harmony, lawyers on both sides of the suit agreed to combine the legal battle into one lawsuit, consolidating the federal cases into one proceeding.
In case you forgot: Blake Lively has accused her It Ends With Us director and costar Justin Baldoni of sexual misconduct on set, as well as an organised smear campaign against her reputation.
In return, Baldoni and his publicists have claimed that Lively defamed them by taking text messages out of context and “mischaracterising” their interactions. Baldoni also alleges that Lively and Reynolds pressured WME, a prestigious talent agency, to drop him as a client, which WME denies.
Both parties have filed lawsuits against each other. Lively and Reynolds's legal team has also expressed concern over the behaviour of Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, who has been speaking to the press and leaking footage from the set of It Ends With Us.
Lively and Reynolds’s legal team argued that this behaviour could prejudice a jury, whereas Freedman argues that it’s his right to combat Lively’s media storm.
While judges want the questioning of Lively to happen as soon as possible for her deposition, Lively’s lawyers have indicated that she will refuse to let Freedman do the deposition, due to “unspecified statements made by Mr. Freedman.”
“We are unaware of any situation that would warrant the deposed party to have a choice in which attorney takes her deposition,” wrote Kevin Fritz, another Baldoni attorney, in the legal documents obtained by Variety. “Parties to litigation simply do not have the right to dictate which of their opponents’ attorneys may or may not take their deposition or perform any other aspect of the opposing party’s case.”
This issue, alongside Lively and Reynolds’s request for dismissal, is set to be argued on Monday when the two legal teams meet for a hearing.
