{"id":155417,"date":"2025-06-03T18:05:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-03T18:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/155417\/"},"modified":"2025-06-03T18:05:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-03T18:05:10","slug":"blake-lively-emotional-distress-claims-against-justin-baldoni-are-dead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/155417\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Lively Emotional Distress Claims Against Justin Baldoni Are Dead"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tThe judge overseeing the Blake Lively<\/a> vs. Justin Baldoni<\/a> lawsuit has decided that the actress\u2019 claims for emotional distress are dead. The ruling comes after a tense back in forth between the dueling sides<\/a>, with Baldoni\u2019s lawyers filing a motion to compel her to turn over her medical records and Lively fighting that move.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Lewis Liman wrote this morning that Baldoni\u2019s motion to compel is denied \u201cbased on Plaintiff\u2019s representation that the relevant claims will be withdrawn. Lively\u2019s request that \u2018because the parties have agreed to dismiss Ms. Lively\u2019s tenth and eleventh causes of action . . . the Court exercise its inherent authority and authority under Rule 15 to dismiss them without prejudice\u2019 is denied without prejudice to renewal. The parties shall stipulate to whether the dismissal is with or without prejudice, or Lively shall renew her request by formal motion. For avoidance of doubt, if the claims are not dismissed, the Court will preclude Lively from offering any evidence of emotional distress.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tIn short, Judge Liman shut down the possibility of Lively changing her mind and turning over her medical records.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively can choose to try to reach an agreement with Baldoni about dismissing the claims with prejudice \u2014 meaning without the right to refile \u2014 or she can roll the dice and ask the judge to dismiss the claims without an agreement in a bid to have the court dismiss them without prejudice. Either way, Lively\u2019s attorneys can no longer present evidence of her alleged emotional distress claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni\u2019s attorneys declined to comment on the ruling. Lively\u2019s\u00a0lawyers\u00a0Esra\u00a0Hudson and Mike Gottlieb\u00a0called their motion to compel \u201cutterly pointless.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe court denied Wayfarer\u2019s motion,\u201d they added in a statement. \u201cHe told the parties to continue their discussions about the technicalities of how two of the 15 claims will be voluntarily dismissed. Ms. Lively has offered to dismiss those claims because they are no longer necessary, and she will continue to pursue emotional distress damages through other claims in her lawsuit, including sexual harassment and retaliation.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Monday, Baldoni\u2019s lawyers filed said motion seeking to compel the actress to sign a HIPAA release for access to therapy notes and other relevant information and referenced her desire to drop the claims rather than acquiesce. In cases involving physical or emotional injury claims, it is standard procedure for the defense to access the plaintiff\u2019s medical records as a way to identify the root and scope of alleged distress.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cInstead of complying with the Medical RFPs, Ms. Lively\u2019s counsel recently advised us, in writing, that\u00a0Ms. Lively is withdrawing her [infliction of emotional distress] Claims,\u201d the filing stated. \u201cHowever, Ms. Lively has refused the Wayfarer Parties\u2019 reasonable request that the withdrawal of such claims be\u00a0with prejudice. She is only willing to withdraw her claims without prejudice. In other words, Ms. Lively wants to simultaneously: (a) refuse to disclose the information and documents needed to disprove that she suffered any emotional distress and\/or that the Wayfarer Parties were the cause;\u00a0and\u00a0(b) maintain the right to re-file her IED Claims at an unknown time in this or some other court after the discovery window has closed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLively\u2019s\u00a0lawyers\u00a0called the filing \u201ca press stunt\u201d and filed their own response that urged the court to sanction Baldoni\u2019s attorneys for the abusing the docket and requested that the motion to compel Lively be denied and struck. \u201cIt is based on two brazenly false assertions. First, they claim that Ms. Lively has \u201crefused\u201d to disclose medical and mental health information, but as counsel for the Wayfarer Parties concede, that information is relevant only to Ms. Lively\u2019s stand-alone tort-based emotional distress claims that she indicated she was withdrawing,\u201d the Lively filing noted. \u201cTo suggest that Ms. Lively has \u2018refused\u2019 to produce anything (in either her written discovery responses, in the parties\u2019 conference, or anytime thereafter) in connection with these claims is intentionally misleading to the Court and their intended audience for this false record: the public. Second, they claim that Ms. Lively has \u2018refused\u2019 to properly stipulate to dismissal. But, that would suggest there was any discussion or mutually known dispute as to the stipulation. As noted, there was none.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe action is playing out in in U.S. District Court\u00a0Southern District of New York, where Lively sued Baldoni, claiming that she was sexual harassed on the set of \u201cIt Ends With Us<\/a>\u201d and faced a retaliatory smear campaign. Baldoni, who directed and co-starred in the hit Sony film about domestic violence, is suing Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds for $400 million, claiming that the actress tried to extort him and subsequently defamed him via a New York Times article. In total, there are six active lawsuits moving through various courts related to what happened on the set and in the run-up to the 2024 release of \u201cIt Ends With Us.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The judge overseeing the Blake Lively vs. Justin Baldoni lawsuit has decided that the actress\u2019 claims for emotional…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3940],"tags":[14497,4080,77,16279,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-155417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-celebrities","8":"tag-blake-lively","9":"tag-celebrities","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-justin-baldoni","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114620761608677989","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155417","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}