Judge blocks Blake Lively’s subpoenas of Justin Baldoni’s legal team

MANHATTAN (CN) — A federal judge on Monday quashed a batch of subpoenas from Blake Lively, who sought information from co-star Justin Baldoni’s legal team amid their sprawling Hollywood legal feud.

In a 17-page order, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman scrutinized the relevance of the actress’ subpoenas and noted the “special care” with which a court must handle these requests between opposing counsel.

Lively claims that Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer Studios crafted an online “smear campaign” to shatter her reputation after she came forward with accusations of sexual harassment against Baldoni on the set of their 2024 romance film “It Ends With Us.”

Her attorneys theorized that Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, collaborated with some of his high-profile content creator clients to drag Lively’s name in the press when the harassment accusations surfaced.

That’s why Lively’s legal team subpoenaed Freedman for information about agreements he has with those content creators, communications he’s had with the media and even phone records from Freedman regarding his public statements about Lively.

But Liman, a Donald Trump appointee, ruled Monday that many of those requested communications would fall under attorney-client privilege or be similarly shielded as attorney work product. He reached that conclusion over arguments from Lively that Freedman himself continues to make defamatory comments about her in the press.

“Moreover, the relevance of such documents and communications to Lively’s claims is uncertain,” Liman said. “Lively does not assert defamation claims against Freedman personally, but against the Wayfarer Parties.”

“The knowledge of the Wayfarer Parties is thus of central importance,” not that of Freedman, the judge added.

Of the eight specific subpoena requests from Lively, the only ones Liman didn’t quash sought information regarding agreements and potential payments between Freedman’s law firm and the content creators he represents. But that’s only because Freedman’s firm told Liman at a hearing last week that no such records exist.

“We certainly did not pay any content creators,” Ellyn Garofalo of Liner Freedman Taitelman Cooley told the judge, prompting him to question why he needed to quash the subpoenas in the first place.

At that hearing, Lively’s attorney Michael Gottlieb of Willkie Farr & Gallagher said he suspected influencers like Candace Owens, Megyn Kelly and Perez Hilton — each of whom Freedman separately represents — had entered into agreements with Freedman to bad-mouth Lively on their respective platforms.

Gottlieb claimed that Owens shared an “exclusive scoop” about the Lively-Baldoni feud that used information from Freedman’s affidavit. And Hilton posted about the spat more than 500 times on his gossip website, by Gottlieb’s estimation, with the posts skewing pro-Baldoni.

Gottlieb argued that Freedman may have encouraged his clients to do this in exchange for discounts on legal fees.

But Liman found that suggestion to be “speculative, of tangential relevance and may be tested by discovery from other sources.” He blocked Lively from demanding those clients’ engagement letters.

“It may thus be relevant whether the negative comments made about Lively can be traced back to the Wayfarer Parties and their agents,” the judge said. “It may be relevant whether the content creators have a relationship with Liner and Freedman and whether they acted at the direction and encouragement of Liner and Freedman.”

“But Lively does not need discovery of the engagement letters of clients of the Liner firm to show whether this was the case,” the judge added.

Liman’s ruling, part of a countersuit by Freedman’s law firm filed exclusively to quash the subpoenas, puts Lively and Baldoni’s feud to bed in New York — for now.

The pair’s legal battle is still alive in California, but Baldoni’s $400 million defamation and extortion countersuit in Manhattan against Lively was dismissed by Liman in June. However, the judge ruled that Baldoni will be allowed to revise and refile some of the claims.

Lively came forward with accusations of sexual harassment against Baldoni in December 2024. She shared her claims with The New York Times, who published a story sourced by Lively that kicked off the flurry of legal action between the Hollywood A-listers.

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