After some quiet on the East Coast court docket front, once again, the battle royale between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni and the It Ends With Us’ director’s inner circle has become a she said, they said in the federal courts.
Specifically this time it has to do with the emotional distress claims that the Another Simple Favor actress has in her initially filed New Year’s Eve lawsuit against her IEWU co-star/director, his Wayfarer Studios, its execs and PR team.
First filing a sexual harassment and retaliation complaint with California’s Civil Rights Department against Baldoni, Melissa Nathan, Jennifer Abel, billionaire Steve Sarowitz and CEO Jamey Heath zwith California’s Civil Rights Department, Lively took it court formally a few weeks later, and then the lawsuits all round started flying. As of now, with a $400 million and more price tag on things from Baldoni’s own legal action, the whole shebang is set to go to trial on March 9, 2026.
In the long march to that day, the latest skirmish is over Lively’s 10th Cause of Action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and her 11th Cause of Action for negligent infliction of emotional distress from her December 31 filing.
In a letter Monday to Judge Lewis J. Liman, with an email exchange between lawyers on both sides from this weekend attached, Baldoni attorney Kevin Fitz of Meister Seelig & Fein says “Ms. Lively’s counsel recently advised us, in writing, that Ms. Lively is withdrawing her IED Claims.” Telling the Judge that this all emerged out of Team Baldoni’s desire to have Lively ‘Identify her medical and mental health care providers, to produce her mental health records, and to deliver to the Wayfarer Parties the necessary, duly executed HIPAA authorizations permitting them to obtain Ms. Lively’s medical and mental health care records from her providers.”
Unsurprisingly, even for the very public and ever growing brawl that this has been since last December, Lively said no way. What she did say is she would drop the IED claims, for now with a catch.
Lively “can’t have it both ways,” Fitz says, then lambasting the actress and her team.
“If Ms. Lively wants to withdraw her frivolous IED Claims, the Wayfarer Parties are entitled to a dismissal with prejudice to ensure they will not be re-filed. If Ms. Lively is unwilling to stipulate to the dismissal of her IED Claims with prejudice, then the Wayfarer Parties will continue to defend against them, and she must produce her medical information and documents as set forth herein.” Baldoni’s lawyers wantJudge Liman to issue an order to compel Lively to reveal her medical and health info.
As they have before after various docket dust-ups, including a now withdrawn Taylor Swift subpoena, Lively’s lead lawyers Esra Hudson and Mike Gottlieb are crying foul.
“Once again this is a routine part of the litigation process that is being used as a press stunt,” the Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP and Willkie Farr & Gallagher LLP attorneys exclaim with foot stomping outrage.
“We are doing what trial lawyers do: preparing our case for trial by streamlining and focusing it; they are doing what they do: desperately seeking another tired round of tabloid coverage,” Hudson and Gottlieb add, not saying the name of Baldoni’s most public lawyer Bryan Freedman, but clearly saying Freedman’s name if you know what I mean? “The Baldoni-Wayfarer strategy of filing retaliatory claims has exposed them to expansive new damages claims under California law, rendering certain of Ms. Lively’s original claims no longer necessary. Ms. Lively continues to allege emotional distress, as part of numerous other claims in her lawsuit, such as sexual harassment and retaliation, and massive additional compensatory damages on all of her claims.”
From the statement it is unclear if that means an amended complaint from Lively is actually coming or not – though not necessarily required and therefore unlikely. It is also unclear, even with the Golden State statutes aspect of this, if an amended complaint is coming, if it will or will not include the 10th Cause of Action for intentional infliction of emotional distress and her 11th Cause of Action for negligent infliction of emotional distress that are currently in the Time 100 honoree’s suit.
Again, not for the first time in this matter, a tempest or a tea cup that is clear as mud.
The post Blake Lively Insists Not Dropping Emotional Distress Claims Against Justin Baldoni, Despite What His Lawyers Say & Her Lawyers Seem To Have Said appeared first on Deadline.
