Blake Lively scored a win in her ongoing legal battle with Justin Baldoni — at least “in part.”
On Thursday, a federal judge granted the “Another Simple Favor” actress, 37, and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, 48, a modified protective order she requested to keep sensitive communications and documents out of the public eye and deemed as for “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” during the pretrial phase of her sexual harassment and defamation lawsuit against her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director.
However, the actress — along with fellow plaintiffs Reynolds and her p.r. representatives (the “Moving” parties) — did not get a victory outright, as the request was “granted in part and denied in part.”
The team for Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios — who have countersued Lively and previously opposed her request for the strengthened protective order — welcomed the decision.
“The Court has narrowed the provision to stated that information may be marked AEO only if its disclosure is ‘highly likely to cause a significant business, commercial, financial, or privacy injury,’ ” Judge Lewis Liman wrote in his memorandum obtained by The Post.
“The parties have levelled [sic] accusations of theft of trade secrets and the disclosure of confidential sensitive information against one another,” he declared.
“The Court’s model protective order is not sufficient for the needs of these cases,” he also stated.
“These cases involve both business competitors and allegations of sexual harm. Discovery will necessarily include confidential and sensitive business and personal information. The risk of disclosure is great.
“Both the Moving Parties and the Wayfarer Parties have accused opposing parties of providing private, sensitive, or confidential information to the media for their own business and personal advantage in ways that cannot easily be traced. Several individuals and corporations on each side are in the business of public relations or media and have easy access to the press.”
The categories of information that the judge designated as “Attorneys’ Eyes Only” included: “trade secrets,” “security measures taken by parties or third parties,” “medical information of parties or third parties,” “highly personal and intimate information about third parties,” and “highly personal and intimate information about parties other than information directly relevant to the truth or falsity of any allegation in the complaints in this case.”
Noting that the protective order will not extend once the lawsuit moves to its trial phase, Liman wrote, “[T]he Court is unlikely to seal or otherwise afford confidential treatment to any Discovery Material introduced in evidence at trial or supporting or refuting any motion for summary judgment, even if such material has previously been sealed or designated as Confidential.”
Celebrating the judge’s decision, a spokesperson for Lively told The Post, “Today, the Court rejected the Wayfarer Parties’ objections and entered the protections needed to ensure the free flow of discovery material without any risk of witness intimidation or harm to any individual’s security. With this order in place, Ms. Lively will move forward in the discovery process to obtain even more of the evidence that will prove her claims in Court.”
Though Baldoni had opposed Lively’s request for the modified protective order, his attorney Bryan Freedman told The Post Thursday that they welcomed Liman’s decision.
“We are fully in agreement with the Court’s decision to provide a narrow scope of protections to categories such as private mental health records and personal security measures that have never been of interest to us as opposed to Ms. Lively’s exceedingly over broad demand for documents for a 2.5 year period of time which the court rightly quashed,” Freedman said.
He continued, “We remain focused on the necessary communications that will directly contradict Ms. Lively’s unfounded accusations. We will oppose any efforts by Ms. Lively and her team to hamper our clients’ ability to defend against her attacks by incorrectly categorizing important information as ‘trade secrets,’ especially considering there were no issues in providing these communications willingly to The New York Times.”
Lively sued Baldoni in December, accusing him of sexual harassment and orchestrating a public smear campaign against her.
The “Jane the Virgin” actor countersued her and Reynolds, alleging defamation, extortion and more. Both stars have denied the other’s claims.
