Blake Lively ordered by judge to give Taylor Swift texts to Justin Baldoni
Despite her best efforts to remain separate from the It Ends With Us legal battle, Taylor Swift’s private texts to Blake Lively must be handed over to Justin Baldoni in the ongoing legal dispute.
Judge Lewis J.Liman has newly determined that the texts passed between the friends are relevant to Lively’s sexual harassment and retaliation claims against co-star Baldoni.
It comes after Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against Lively was dismissed on June 9th. A judge dismissed Baldoni’s claims against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds, and their publicist for extortion, defamation, and invasion of privacy that the director and actor had made in January.
Lively also has one less claim of her own in the case. Following a request from Baldoni’s lawyers for Lively to release her medical notes to evidence the claim that she suffered “severe emotional distress and pain, humiliation, [and] embarrassment,” the actor has attempted to drop the allegations of intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligent infliction of emotional distress, according to Variety on June 2nd.
Baldoni’s lawyers claimed that their subpoena attempted to show Lively’s “threats” made to her close friend Swift, via text messaging. Their case argued that the actor threatened her global superstar confidant to support her in the legal battle publicly, which Lively’s legal team strongly denied. Lively said this was a grab at the headlines, and Swift has stressed, via her team, that she’d like to stay firmly out of the legal mess.
However, the judge has necessitated that the texts be released. “Given that Lively has represented that Swift had knowledge of complaints or discussions about the working environment on the film, among other issues, the requests for messages with Swift regarding the film and this action are reasonably tailored to discover information that would prove or disprove Lively’s harassment and retaliation claims,” Judge Liman wrote.
Of Swift’s global fame, the judges seemed unperturbed, stating, “A motion or request may be, and in this case often has been, both a legitimate litigation tactic and an attempt to manoeuvre in the broader court of public opinion. The mere fact that the request has been discussed in the press does not render it illegitimate.”
Lively’s spokesperson lashed out at this choice, stating, “We will continue to call out Baldoni’s relentless efforts to exploit Ms. Swift’s popularity, which from day one has been nothing more than a distraction from the serious sexual harassment and retaliation accusations he and the Wayfarer parties are facing.”
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