Justin Baldoni’s Lawyer Slams ‘Privileged’ Blake Lively Amid Legal War

Justin Baldoni‘s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, has slammed Blake Lively after she filed to dismiss the actor’s $400 million defamation lawsuit.

Freedman claims the actress is trying to manipulate the legal system as a “privileged elite” but vowed to continue to hold her “accountable for her actions of pure malice.”

Judge Lewis Liman has already placed a modified protective order on Blake Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds‘ conversations with “high-profile” individuals after they requested it, expressing fears that Justin Baldoni could leak them to the press.

Baldoni’s lawyer recently slammed Lively after she filed to have the $400 million countersuit against her, her husband Reynolds, and their publicist, Leslie Sloane, thrown out of court.

“Lively’s recent motion to dismiss herself from the self-concocted disaster she initiated is one of the most abhorrent examples of abusing our legal system,” Freedman said in a statement shared with the Daily Mail. “Stringent rules are put into place to protect the innocent and allow individuals to rightfully defend themselves.”

He went further to note that “laws are not meant to be twisted and curated by privileged elites to fit their own personal agenda,” as he vowed to “continue to hold Ms. Lively accountable for her actions of pure malice, which include falsely accusing my clients of harassment and retaliation.”

Freedman added that the “Gossip Girl” star’s “fantastical claims will be swiftly debunked as discovery moves forward, easily disproved with actual, evidentiary proof.”

According to the news outlet, Lively’s attorneys filed for all cases against the actress to be dropped, tagging Baldoni’s $400 million lawsuit as “vengeful and rambling” while claiming that the “It Ends With Us” director’s motion is a “profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court.”

Court documents also showed that their continuous legal actions against Lively may end up costing Baldoni’s team $100 million due to a legal provision in California Civil Code Section 47.1, which provides protections to individuals who have spoken out about sexual harassment or filed legal claims.

“The law prohibits weaponizing defamation lawsuits, like this one, to retaliate against individuals who have filed legal claims or have publicly spoken out about sexual harassment and retaliation,” the documents read.

“The right to seek legal redress and the right of the press to report on it are sacred principles that are protected by multiple privileges, including the litigation and fair report privileges, which are absolute,” it continued.

“Moreover, by choosing to bring their claims under California law, the Wayfarer Parties have voluntarily subjected their entire lawsuit to the sexual harassment privilege in the recently enacted California Civil Code Section 47.1 (‘Section 47.1’), which bars retaliatory lawsuits based on public disclosures of sexual harassment and related allegations, including disclosures to the press,” the document further stated.

Lively’s lawyers, led by Mike Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, have given reasons behind her motion to dismiss Baldoni’s defamation lawsuit.

Having claimed that the lawsuit is a “profound abuse of the legal process that has no place in federal court,” they went further to note that California laws “expressly prohibits suing victims” who have spoken up against sexual harassment or retaliation.

They said, “This meritless and retaliatory lawsuit runs head first into three legal obstacles, including the litigation, fair report, and sexual harassment privileges, the latter of which contains a mandatory fee-shifting provision that will require the likes of billionaire Steve Sarowitz, Wayfarer Studios, and others that brought frivolous defamation claims against Ms. Lively to pay damages.”

The attorneys added, “In other words, in an epic self-own, the Wayfarer Parties’ attempt to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion’ has only created more liability for them, and deservedly so, given what they have done.”

Lively’s motion to dismiss comes after her husband, Ryan Reynolds, filed to have Baldoni’s suit against him dismissed, claiming the actor cannot sue him over “hurt feelings.”

Baldoni’s lawsuit accused Reynolds of mocking and bullying him by using the character of “Nicepool” in “Deadpool & Wolverine” to satirize Baldoni’s “feminist” image.

He also accused Reynolds of calling him a “sexual predator” while also claiming that he berated him for allegedly “fat shaming” Lively.

In a motion to dismiss the claims, Reynolds’s lawyer didn’t dispute that the Nicepool character is based on Baldoni but said that he had shown “thin-skinned outrage” by complaining about it, per Variety.

Reynolds’s lawyers noted in their court filing that the actor’s labeling of Baldoni as a “sexual predator” is protected by the Constitution.

The “allegations suggest that Mr. Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr. Baldoni’s behavior is reflective of a ‘predator,'” the motion stated. “(T)he law establishes that calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to constitutionally protected opinion… While Mr. Baldoni ‘may not appreciate being called a ‘predator,’ those hurt feelings do not give rise to legal claims.”

“Mr. Reynolds has a First Amendment right to hold Mr. Baldoni — or any man who Mr. Reynolds believes sexually harassed his wife — in ‘deep disdain,'” the court document read.