Lively v. Baldoni 37 - The Most Bull Shit of Bull Shits

Transcript

This transcript was generated automatically and may contain errors — the audio is the record.

0:00:01 Clip: All rise. Court is now in session. Court is reconvened. I may be seated. Maintain order. The federal rise to face the jury and harken to its verdicts.

0:00:25 Thomas: Gavel in, gavel in everybody. Hello. It is episode 37 of Gavel Gavel. Can you believe it? I'm Thomas. That's Lydia. How are you doing?

0:00:36 Lydia: Oh, I'm feeling gavel -y again.

0:00:38 Thomas: She's got that gavel in her eye. She's ready to gavel everybody. This is an interesting one. There is a bullshit that's so bullshit. As I advertised last episode, we had to call our lawyer about it. And that bullshit involves, and that stems from the next sentence that we're on from last episode. After it said the evidence proved that neither the alleged sexual harassment nor the accompanying smear campaign against Lively ever existed.

0:01:05 Thomas: Disagree there. But then it says, yet Lively moved forward with her plan with ruthless precision, doubling down. That's not even, I just love the creative writing here. Doubling down in the face of abundant evidence, casting doubt on the veracity of her story. Lively even went so far as to serve her lawsuit on the Los Angeles based defendants as they evacuated their homes in the midst of devastating fires engulfing their city. On a day when the Wayfair parties were gathering their kids and pets, preparing go bags and monitoring evacuation orders while fearing for their homes, Lively, from the safety of her penthouse in New York, deployed process servers in the midst of these troubling times.

0:01:48 Thomas: Oh boy, that is so, yeah. Have you no decency, Blake Lively in your penthouse?

0:01:49 Lydia: Have you no shame?

0:01:59 Thomas: Oh boy I can't tell you how stupid that is how fun I just I don't even look I'm not even gonna try I'm gonna leave it there

0:02:07 Lydia: You're going to leave it for the Thomas in the episode

0:02:09 Thomas: And then we're gonna take a break then we'RE GONNA GET OUR LAWYER yeah we're going to take our break and then after the break we're GOING TO REALLY DIG IN TO THE MOST BULLSHIT OF BULLSHITS THAT THING I JUST READ hey avoid the ads and get stuff early if you're a normie you know patrons heard this like a year ago before the lawsuit that's how awesome it is to be on patreon.com/gavelpod. Do it. Support us. Hang out with us.

0:02:12 Lydia: Because it's that bad. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

0:02:37 Thomas: Message us. All that stuff. patreon.com/gavelpod. All right. After this, we'll get yelling.

0:02:50 Thomas: We're once again joined by amazing attorney Anne. How are you doing?

0:02:51 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:02:54 Anne: Hello. Well, happy to be here.

0:02:56 Thomas: It's as though almost no time has passed since we talked.

0:02:58 Anne: Almost none whatsoever.

0:02:59 Thomas: It feels like none. Let's talk about service of process.

0:03:03 Anne: Oh, let's do it.

0:03:04 Thomas: Do you want to give us the information about how this maybe how this normally would take place and then maybe go into to what allegedly has happened here.

0:03:12 Anne: Yes. So normally among reasonable lawyers who are not trying to play bullshit litigation games, it's a very smooth nothing of a process, right? You go, hey, we've got a suit, blah, blah. Will you accept service for your clients? Both sides say yes. The documents are emailed and it's done. That's like just considered sort of basic professional courtesy, if someone says no to that, you know, you're dealing with somebody who either doesn't know how things are done, or is just going to be the worst to deal with the whole way through. Because there's a difference between lawyers, right? There's the lawyers who understand that what we're doing is being zealous advocates for our clients. And we're testing, you Know, we're using all of the evidence and arguments that we can but we're testing that in the forum the arena of the courts and you know all of the maneuvering of litigation and we're you know and we are people on the outside of that correct

0:04:12 Thomas: And you're professionals and you're both doing the same job. You know, it struck me in our legal thing, it is really interesting. It's nice that like you all could be like, all right, we'll talk to the lawyers on the other side and you guys can have a conversation that's not gonna be as emotionally charged as it would be if I'm trying to talk to somebody. And it's kind of, it's nice. Like it's both something that I'm like, I'm glad that there's a person whose job it is to do that and to be a little, on one hand, you're like, like, oh, I wish everyone cared about this exactly as much as I did. But that's not realistic. These folks are going to be your advocates, but they're professionals. They can talk to each other on kind of, they can level a little bit. And it's not normal to fight service of process in this way or just to, what, go silent, radio silent on it?

0:04:56 Anne: Right correct so like yeah and then there are the people who who do some other version of things where they're like they've read like sun tzu's art of war too many times or something and they think that they're like we're at war now and that so then every single professional courtesy they're just like like, no, no. You send your process server or you're like, hey, I need to move this, you know, this hearing date or something. You know, can we accommodate each other? Can we move this deadline because I'm, you knows, family emergency or whatever? And they're just like, no. And you're, like, okay, noted. You will get the same treatment and response. But those people are just a nightmare to litigate with. Like, they're not substantively advancing their client's case. And in fact, many times they're hurting it because you're about to do the same thing if it comes up, right? If somebody has denied you something very reasonable you asked for, then when they need something from you, and they will, you're going to say no, absolutely. And then, you know, maybe that brief gets filed when they haven't had enough time or whatever. It's a really bad way of litigating. So it was surprising to see that service of process, the waiver of service of process officially was denied as to the individual defendants in this case?

0:06:13 Thomas: The normal thing we've all seen from the movies is like, Oh, somebody has to like pretend they're a door -to -door vacuum salesman and be be like, hi, can I speak to whatever? And then you've just been served. And so like, there is like some amount of realism there. Like that's not entirely a fake thing, right?

0:06:21 Anne: Correct. That is not entirely a fake thing.

0:06:29 Thomas: Like if it gets contentious. Yeah. But in the normal, in normal, like if someone's not going to try to avoid service of process, because most human beings are not going To do that. Well, yeah, most human beings are because it's silly. It doesn't really do anything like you can, if you could somehow successfully avoid it forever, then I guess it accomplishes something. But like, that's not going to happen in this high profile case. Like there's just no way. And so talk about like, you normally just email each other, whatever you talk to the other attorneys and like, Hey, wave the part where you have to have a guy pretend to be a vacuum salesman specifically. And then that guy's like, Oh, he's like in the costume already. And like takes his vacuum and goes home. You wave that. And then, yeah, it's like but

0:07:05 Anne: Sadly pulls off his fake mustache.

0:07:10 Thomas: I already, oh, okay. I already memorized what was good about this vacuum. I was going to anyway, but there's also a time thing where it's It's like in exchange, you also, there's like an increased deadline usually or something. Talk about that.

0:07:20 Anne: Yeah, so there's a time that you have to serve within, right? And so and then there's deadlines that sort of knock on after that, right in terms of responding to the complaint and other things. So it just is much cleaner to, again, just agree, okay, we're going to waive it. And we exchange the emails. And now we both know the time clocks that are running for our next steps, as opposed to X things can't happen until this service of process is effectuated. And we don't know exactly when that's going to be. And only then will the time clock start running. And so we're counting on the vacuum cleaner sales guy, right?

0:07:57 Thomas: There is this time gap of about 11 days, I think, between the CRD complaint, the California one, and they got that right to sue letter the next day, I'm pretty sure, or that day. And then when they actually filed their complaint. Now, it could also always be just like polishing stuff up, you know, final touches, I suppose. But it ends up being largely identical. I think it's, you Know, there is like the extra stuff you do for the legal complaint, obviously. What's the timing of like when a complaint goes live on I don't know the court docket versus service of process which has to happen first okay okay so that wouldn't necessarily explain that gap all right I'm still not sure what that was but maybe we'll find out

0:08:29 Anne: The complaint can can go live before service is effectuated. Yeah,

0:08:37 Lydia: Mean

0:08:39 Thomas: Someday yeah true

0:08:40 Lydia: Like christmas is probably part of it just the holidays might might be part of that but

0:08:42 Thomas: Yeah could be nothing okay so in your experience uh again something like 20 years uh experience in this stuff how often have you had an asshole who's like not accepting service and you have have to go through a whole rigmarole.

0:08:55 Anne: I would say once. I mean, again, my experience, right, has mostly been litigating with companies, not individuals. So somebody who spends a lot of time with individual litigation might say a much higher frequency, right? But for the most part, this is right.

0:09:11 Thomas: Because for companies, it's kind of hard to be like, no one's home. No, no, we don't live here anymore. It's a big sign that says like, Acme, like Anvil. Nope, nope, that's not us.

0:09:22 Anne: No, actually, this is part of why the rules exist requiring that all companies companies have a valid agent for registered agent for service of process, right? Because this is what companies would do. They would just have like a PO box that was like their home address in the state. And then you'd be like, I'm attempting to serve. And they're just like, ah, I can't just like leave this at an empty office. Sure.

0:09:43 Thomas: So that almost never happens. And granted, you know, dealing with individuals versus companies, that makes sense.

0:09:49 Anne: But it's a dick move. Like the other thing I'm thinking of is like if, you know, the other time I've seen this happen in terms of messy celebrity stuff, right, was the Olivia Wilde, Jason Sudeikis thing, right? Remember how there was a big don't worry, darling thing where?

0:10:03 Lydia: I was during a don't worry darling yep yep we talked about that in the first episode soon.

0:10:07 Thomas: Not this part of it, though, right? Yeah.

0:10:07 Anne: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

0:10:09 Lydia: No, not this part.

0:10:10 Anne: So like, that was really unusual that Reishi complained like, Oh, this is a process server. And it was so embarrassing. It's like, well, you actually created that situation.

0:10:19 Thomas: Oh, right. Yeah. So like, Like there shouldn't be any reason why you get served with process in that way, right?

0:10:25 Anne: Nope.

0:10:25 Thomas: I mean, like, unless, is there a thing where some, I guess the other person could insist on doing that? Is that a thing? Like you could just not email and just be like, I want to do this for some reason, but it costs money, doesn't it?

0:10:33 Anne: Yes, people can people can do this if they are trying to embarrass someone, right. Like if you were surprise filing for divorce, and you wanted to serve the person with divorce papers in a public place as a extra twist of the knife as a goof. Yeah.

0:10:42 Thomas: As a goof. Yeah. That sounds shitty. But yeah, there's no reason, like if everyone's being reasonable, this should never happen. But is it, well, okay, we're dealing with celebrities. So the money thing is probably not any real component of this that matters to them, I'm guessing. But it's not like zero dollars, right? It's going to cost something.

0:11:06 Anne: I mean, it's it's like, depending on how many attempts have to be made, right, you're looking at potentially 1000 or more dollars.

0:11:14 Thomas: Yeah. So nothing to them. All right. So what happened in this case?

0:11:16 Anne: So in this case, as I understand it, they were able to serve The corporate defendants, and they asked the attorney as to the individual individual defendants, can we just waive service of process? Here's the signed document saying yes, as to us, we waive services of process, sort of like expectation that you'll respond in kind, because this is just like the standard procedure. On the one side of the ledger here, we've got all of these firms who like this is what they do. And they are used to operating at like a pretty high level versus this attorney for Wayfair and the Baldoni defendants who frankly, before this, I'd like never heard of this law firm. Maybe they're big in the little area of what they do, but I'd never heard them. So that apparently goes unresponded to. They try again. At this point, if you are an attorney, and you have not responded to opposing counsel, and then they follow up going, hey, you haven't responded to this. Again, normally, you'd be like, oh, shit, I have to respond to this right away to just leave it on red, essentially, two times in a row would

0:12:19 Anne: Be crazy. At that point, you're almost getting into the territory of like, this is sanctionable behavior, right? Because you're like not responding, you'RE not following the code of sort of like professional conduct between each other. And you can respond and say, I haven't gotten permission from my clients or something, but you're supposed to respond. So then to have them have to follow up again. And then as I understand it, write a letter to the court, explaining all of this, it looks so bad for you. Because judges don't want to be in the middle of this kind of, A of all, fighting about service of process is just such petty bullshit. And then to have the judge have to get in the Middle of a fight about service or process, they're just like, I hate everyone already.

0:13:05 Thomas: We know that Brian Friedman is not the greatest, we'll say. It feels like this could have been intentional. Now, his excuse is my house burned down. And from all we can see, yeah, his house burned down in those fires. I don't know what day that was. Was it?

0:13:15 Lydia: And it did. Yeah oh, I looked this up hang on January 7th.

0:13:23 Thomas: Oh, what? That's way after this would have been.

0:13:25 Lydia: Yeah yeah, so it was a week of a week, of

0:13:26 Thomas: OK, this is silly. So it's time to call some bullshit here, because Brian Friedman's excuse was his house burned down. But that happened January 7th, way after this. Like they could have.

0:13:36 Lydia: Avoiding started January 7th yeah.

0:13:38 Thomas: Yeah, it could have been after that, I suppose. But they could like granted there's the holidays, etc, etc. Sure. But again, it is easier to just accept via email. And we don't live in the 90s. We all know that everyone is getting this stuff on their phones now. So the idea that like the fire caused, you know, that Brian Friedman couldn't accept and then how dare these heartless like there's a bunch of if you just Google it, there's a bunch articles Blake and Ryan Reynolds insensitive in not allowing this extra time because what happened after was Friedman requested extra time and they said, well, you could have had that extra time if you just accepted service via email or whatever rather than making us do a process server thing.

0:14:21 Anne: Yes, and that's all correct. Right? Like, I think this is a thing where they're taking advantage of the fact that people don't really understand the ins and outs of the legal process. And to the extent anyone's complaining about a service of process issue, it's only because they created that situation themselves by not accepting an email service of process generally.

0:14:41 Lydia: We know he was working then because I just found a an Instagram post that Variety shared that says on January 7, Justin Baldoni's lawyer Brian Friedman sent a litigation hold letter to Kevin Feige and And Bob Iger, in connection with his clients, anticipated claims against Ryan Reynolds, Blake Lively and other unnamed parties.

0:14:57 Thomas: Well, and their complaint was filed 1231. Like we know that they filed against the New York Times 1231, they corrected the January 2nd. So like, I assume that when they filed their complaint, they did service a process to the New York times, you know, like they were doing all this stuff. Can we reset and just do that proper timeline?

0:15:00 Lydia: Yeah. Against the New York Times. Yeah. January 2nd. He's working.

0:15:17 Lydia: OK, so they file their complaint with Southern District of New York, December 31st. Same day.

0:15:22 Thomas: Maybe already stopping you. Sorry. And would they have already been trying to serve this complaint or does, do you start trying to service it once you file it?

0:15:29 Anne: You start trying to serve it once you file it. You have to give them the stamped file copy. Yeah.

0:15:35 Thomas: That's right. Okay. So that's when they would start looking to do this. Gotcha.

0:15:38 Lydia: All right. 6 .50 p .m. from Michael Gottlieb to Brian Friedman. C .C. you know, other folks at Blake Liley's legal team. Mr. Friedman, I attach a federal court complaint filed earlier today in the Southern District of Newark against Wayfair Studios, LLC and others as listed on the caption. Please let us know if you will represent Wayfarer or any of the other listed parties in this action, and if so, whether you will accept service on their behalf.

0:16:00 Thomas: And that's New Year's Eve. So, OK, take the day. Hey, New Year'S Day, the next day, maybe take two days.

0:16:06 Lydia: Yeah, so they gave him a week, and Kristen Bender, part of the legal team, again from Wilkie, Farr, and Gallagher, emailed Brian Friedman again, cc'd other folks from the legal Team of Blake Lively, and said, Said, Mr. Friedman, service has been effectuated on Wayfair Studios LLC. It ends with us Movie LLC and the agency group PR LLC. Service of process as to the remainder of the defendants is underway. Please advise if you will accept service on behalf of the remaining defendants, Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel.

0:16:37 Thomas: At that point, the fire is going. So legitimately, your life is going to be in disarray. Sure. But we also know he was filing other stuff.

0:16:44 Lydia: Yeah, they sent a letter to Disney that day, that same exact day.

0:16:46 Thomas: Yeah. And this isn't and this isn'T a difficult thing to do. Right. Isn'T this like a one word email? You know, like how hard is it to say?

0:16:55 Anne: This is all you need is permission from your clients. And you would go this. It's very common. In fact, I would expect that we should just say yes to this. Please give give me permission to accept this service of process so we can keep going? And your clients should say yes.

0:17:09 Thomas: And you would expect that should have happened like January 2nd. You know what I mean? At the latest. There's no reason.

0:17:13 Anne: Yeah, you would think. I mean, again, part of the reason why I stopped doing litigation as my main job is because stuff like this happens and you get this email on New Year's Eve and you're like, oh, fuck, I don't want to be focusing on this right now. But now you know that's what's waiting for you. So I get it. But yes, you should be talking to your clients, you know, on the first or the second going, OK, this is what's going to happen. This is what I I need from you right now right

0:17:36 Thomas: So what happens next? Next time, do we do we have any indication of whether or not it was Friedman doing something weird or the clients not wanting to accept process? Do we know?

0:17:45 Lydia: I don't think we know because it's just radio silence the whole time.

0:17:49 Thomas: Wow. So there was the January 7th one. And OK, maybe the fire is responsible for that or something, even though it's just on your phone and he could have done it earlier. And by the way, responding to this makes it easier, not harder. So that's crazy. But then we get all the way to after they file a complaint against Lively.

0:18:06 Lydia: Yeah, so January 16th, they filed their cross -complaint. Yep.

0:18:09 Thomas: And even then, they email and are like, hey, we will accept service for the cross -complaint you just filed.

0:18:15 Lydia: Yep. So Michael Gottlieb emails Brian Friedman and one of the other partners at the firm and says, Mr. Friedman, as I am sure you will recall, we reached out to you to ask whether you would accept service on behalf of your clients when Ms. Lively filed her lawsuit against your clients in the Southern District of New York. We made that request because we generally find it less invasive and far more efficient for all parties to effectuate service in a collegial manner. Unfortunately, you did not respond to that request or agree to accept service. On behalf of any of your client's in response to our request by this email, email, I am notifying you that you may serve your client's complaints against Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds by email to me or my colleagues. Our clients have authorized us to accept service on their behalf. If you'd like to send us the complaint, we will send you a waiver of service form for your records. There's no reason to waste any more of your client'S resources or needlessly frighten uninvolved third parties with process servers.

0:19:02 Anne: So this makes me laugh right like because you know this lawyer was just like oh my fuck all right cracks knuckles here we go like I'm gonna create a record because now we're at the point where this is probably gonna have to get in front of a judge like I am documenting shit and I am making you look bad because you deserve it like we tried to play nice

0:19:23 Lydia: And turns out that someone was trying to serve process on a young female employee of one of Lively's clients or one.

0:19:32 Anne: It sounds like maybe a assistant of lively or something

0:19:35 Lydia: Yeah. So the next day, January 19th, Gottlieb kind of spells out exactly what he alluded to in the previous email, you know, about frightened, uninvolved third parties with process servers. So apparently what happened was a young female employee of their clients. So a Lively assistant or something like that was followed by a process server late at night to a home where the employee was staying.

0:19:59 Lydia: And it says, quote, she was sufficiently disturbed by the conduct that she filed a police report.

0:20:03 Thomas: Oh, my God. For no reason. This does not need to happen.

0:20:06 Lydia: For no reason. Yep.

0:20:07 Anne: Right none of that needed to happen Right.

0:20:10 Thomas: What in the world?

0:20:11 Lydia: Yeah, that would be very traumatizing.

0:20:13 Thomas: So that's them deciding they don't even want to do the electronic service, even though Blake has already said she'd accept it. And they're saying, no, we're going to just do we're gonna do a process server anyway.

0:20:24 Lydia: We're going to track down these other people.

0:20:26 Anne: They've had two communications now being like, hey, can we not do this? And then it sounds like they said, hey this is fine. Here you go. And then still they had already sent or maybe continued to send the fake vacuum cleaner salesman after a young woman late at night. 100

0:20:45 Thomas: What

0:20:46 Lydia: I mean who who Gottlieb says is not a party to this action.

0:20:50 Thomas: The hell? They caught her body double by mistake.

0:20:52 Lydia: Yeah maybe.

0:20:55 Thomas: Well, that's infuriating. So at this point, and if you're Lively's lawyer, you're like, well, this is a grade A asshole I'm dealing with. This is like, like, what are you thinking?

0:21:04 Anne: 100 I'm like telling my clients like this is gonna be it's gonna be like this

0:21:10 Lydia: Yeah and then

0:21:11 Thomas: Wow. What happened after that? Is that the end of the story or what?

0:21:15 Lydia: Gottliebe filed a letter with the court and said here's what's been going on and called out the individual who was so frightened by being followed by this random person that they did not know late at night that they filed a a police report. It's all included in the email to Judge Lyman.

0:21:28 Thomas: Wow. And so what happens then? The judge is like I hate reading this because I'm too busy and I don't want to read anything. But what does this have any effect? Like what?

0:21:35 Lydia: Yeah. Can I can I assign this to somebody else?

0:21:38 Thomas: Yeah. Does it?

0:21:38 Lydia: Let's refer this to a different judge, please.

0:21:40 Thomas: What would you expect to happen as a result of this?

0:21:42 Anne: So normally the judge would just be like probably at first they are just like I ignore this for the moment and expect that you guys are gonna work this out and if to the extent that there's any challenge to like service a process not being completed timely or whatever now you've got something on the record. If you come back and say, hey, we wrote this letter, and they still haven't been cooperating, then the judge might have like some show cause hearing of like, just basically hauling the lawyers in front and being like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Right? Why are you wasting my time?

0:22:13 Anne: Normally, something like at this level, it's like, okay, like we've made a report to the principal, that should be enough for you to stop playing games. But at a minimum, we've now got something that maybe starts the beginning of documenting a pattern of bad behavior with the judge, that could then be the basis for a move for sanctions or something else later on.

0:22:13 Lydia: Yeah,

0:22:34 Thomas: So what happened then? Did they have to actually use a process server and find Justin? In and and so that also gives lie to this idea that a house burning down has anything to do with it because like the process server doesn't go and find friedman it goes and finds the parties right

0:22:46 Lydia: The parties.

0:22:48 Anne: And all you've got to do right is again, either yourself or someone you deputized to either check with your clients to be like, hey, can I have permission to do this, please, this would make the most sense and or just read your emails and then communicate internally to be Like, hey call off that process server because we don't need them anymore. We've gotten this permission. So like, I don't know what happened here.

0:23:08 Thomas: Wow all right and thanks for taking us through that incredibly frustrating thing and uh everyone just accept service via email assholes like come on there's no reason you don't have to do this yeah

0:23:17 Anne: Don't be a jerk. Anytime guys always willing to put on a fake mustache for you

0:23:21 Thomas: We'll give you and can you give it a how many exhales rating you know or maybe how many seconds of like, okay, you know, because, you know, it's just some poor attorney that so dumb.

0:23:22 Lydia: Don't Of sighing. Yeah? Exasperated sigh. Yeah

0:23:27 Anne: Oh I would I would give this like a like a good four count sigh like a big yeah this attorney is just like this isn't what I went to fucking law school for don't make this is an hour of my day god until

0:23:46 Thomas: All right. Well, back in the law closet with you and we'll talk to you later. So that's where we left it with lawyer and but subsequently we've got a little bit more information on this and despite that information coming in the form of Wayfarer's letter motion, it actually in my my mind, is more bullshit than I thought, which is incredible. So why don't you bring us up to speed?

0:23:49 Anne: Next time

0:23:59 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:24:17 Lydia: So what we talked about with Anne was was primarily the issues regarding service of process from the lively parties in the Wayfair v. Lively complaint. And that docket, that service of progress was effectuated January 19th. That's when we got the letter from Gottlieb that we read through and then the additional emails with that waiver specifically attached to them.

0:24:39 Thomas: Important thing, actually, and this is something MJ mentioned, I think, at some point. It is weird that there were two dockets at this point. And that's part of this deliberate strategy, I guess, by Friedman, because we've got two things to keep track of. There's Lively has to serve the complaint on the Wayfair parties. Then separately, because Wayfair wanted to file their separate thing. Once they filed their suit, then Wayfair has the obligation to serve Lively.

0:25:05 Thomas: That wouldn't have normally happened. What would have normally happen is Lively just serves Wayfair. Wayfair gets a bunch of time to respond and then Wayfair files their counter within that same docket. So that is part of the weird wrinkles here that why we have like these two different timings of service of process and stuff. Yeah, right.

0:25:20 Lydia: Yeah, the crazy timelines that are happening. So on the other docket, we get a letter motion for extension of time filed by the Wayfair parties. And this is on January 22nd. So after Gottlieb had filed on the Wayfarer v. Lively docket.

0:25:33 Thomas: Before we talk about this Wayfari letter motion though, let's just again, quick, I know this is technical stuff and I feel feel like now we have a better understanding of it than we did when we talked to Ann. So I think we're going to do a quick bullet point to make sure we keep everybody together. So resetting, making sure we all have it. Blake Lively's lawsuit, which we've gone through, first filed December 31st.

0:25:55 Thomas: That ends up being the very same day that Friedman and them filed the New York Times lawsuit that said they didn't even sue us.

0:25:59 Lydia: Yes. Yeah. Same exact day.

0:26:01 Thomas: Same exact day. So that's funny. That same day, December 31, 6 .50 p .m., which, you know, that's New Year's Eve, but also they filed their thing on New Year's Eve. So they're working. Like the lawyers are all working at this time. Gottlieb sends an email, Mr. Friedman. And this is just, this is fucking par for the course. This isn't totally normal how you do it. Mr. Freedman, I attach a federal court complaint filed earlier today in the Southern District of New York against Wayfair Studios, LLC, and others as listed on the caption. Please let us know if you will represent Wayfairy. I think we already read that before, but just again, make sure we have this all straight because it's such a bullshit. Respectfully, Mike Gottliebe. So as we said with Anne, okay, that's New Year'S Eve. I get they were working, but yeah, like whatever. Like I'm not expecting a response like that minute, of course.

0:26:11 Lydia: Yeah, they were working. Mm -mm. Mm -hm. Right.

0:26:44 Thomas: But you've emailed the other side that you're suing. And as I said within, you're emailing their lawyer. It's not like you're mailing Justin and being like, here you shit, sexual predator, fuck you. You know, you email, this lawyer's emailing lawyers. Gottlieb is not Blake Lively. And you would think Friedman is not Justin Baldoni, but it turns out Friedman IS Justin Baldomi or something. His tactics make it seem like he has an emotional connection to this or something, it's very weird. So you would expect a response like within a few days, right?

0:27:04 Lydia: -jm. Yeah. Yeah, I think so. Right.

0:27:14 Thomas: That's just normal lawyer stuff. Then, as we've covered, but repeating, a week later, Kristen Bender, another attorney working with Gottlieb at Wookie Fire and Gallagher, she sends that email we referenced where she says, Mr. Friedman, it's January freaking 7th, it'S been a week and service has been effectuated on all the companies, essentially. The thing about this is, first off, you're required to serve the person you sue. Now, that backstop deadline is 90 days, but you just do it right away. That's just how you do it. For one, if you're suing someone, you're trying to get the fuck going. Like it's already, it already takes so long to get through the legal system anyway. And once they are served, that starts their clock. They have a deadline to reply. And the waiver of service thing is a pretty significant extension that you get. So if you agree to accept service electronically or whatever it is, you actually get 60 days rather than only 21 days to respond if you're physically served. In normal dealings, you just do this as an undercover, like you just do this. It saves time. It saves money. There's no reason not to. And so Gottlieb had asked, do you represent Wayfair or any of the other listed parties in the action? And if so, will you accept service? So Gottliebs is doing the normal professional thing. Hey, do You accept service and they just ghost Friedman

0:27:41 Lydia: Mm -thm. Yeah. Mm -them. Yeah. Yep.

0:28:29 Thomas: Just ghosts. By the way, for everybody, for all of those defendants. And so what seems to have happened is, I'm sure Blake Lively doesn't like being ghosted. And it's like, all right, well, you're going to ghost us. You're not going to do the courteous thing. They go and serve the corporate defendants because it's really easy to serve corporations. They have to have a place you can serve them. We talked about that with Anne. And so that's what leads to this January 7th. Hey, service has been effectuated on Wayfair Studios LLC, it ends with us movies LLC and the agency group PR LLC. Service of process as to the remainder of the defendants is underway. Way. So they're saying like, you haven't responded. We're going to start serving, but they still give them a chance. Please advise if you will accept service on behalf of the remaining defendants, Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, Jennifer Abel. So still giving them the chance. Hey, let's save this time. By the way, let'S also give you the extension of deadline.

0:29:17 Thomas: This isn't just for Blake Lively. It more than doubles the time, actually almost triples the time that you get to respond. If you'll just answer the fucking email.

0:29:26 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, just say, yes, we accept service. None of this is a good strategy. It doesn't change anything. It isn't like they already know the lawsuit. Like there's no way they don't know what the lawsuit is. It might be one thing when you're suing someone who has no idea they're going to be sued when you serve them is when they find out about it, that might kind of affect your calculations. But are they just ghosting us to try to game out like more response time? Because the clock doesn't start until service is effectuated. So, and this is just like universal controversial in terms of talking to lawyers. This is a total dick move for no fucking reason by Friedman. And Gottlieb has got to be thinking like, hey, dick, I'm giving you, you know, Blake and Kristen Bender, whoever's working this is like, just accept the fucking service. Take the extra days that we're going to give you. Still nothing. Absolute crickets. Nothing. That was the seventh. Time goes by, time goes by. Time Goes By. Still fucking nothing from these assholes. And then imagine they sue Blake Lively. Now, they've already sued the New York Times, But that was only the New York Times.

0:30:26 Thomas: They were the only named defendant in that December 31st one. So now, January 16th, they're suing Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds and all those parties. Meanwhile, they have never responded to a fucking email accepting service on the client's behalf. Half. And so Blake Lively and Gottlieb, and they do, they do the normal, completely normal lawyer thing of, okay, well, we're going to send process servers. We didn't want to do this. We sent the email that said, please accept service for any of them, any of the clients. And they didn't do it. And so they have to send a physical person that costs money. I get, I know these are all rich people. So I don't care, but like, there's no point. It's fucking pointless. There's no reason to do that. And then this 16th, when they're sued, Blake Lively's lawyers are like, well well, we've been sued and they didn't even email us about their lawsuit.

0:31:11 Thomas: So they haven't even emailed to be like, Hey, do you accept service?

0:31:11 Lydia: Days are going by.

0:31:15 Thomas: And so here's the thing. If you're Blake Lively on the 16th and the 17th and 18th, and you haven't heard anything, it's like, okay, are they going to hire a process server to like scare us? You know, is this going to be, I don't mean in like a criminal sense, but in like, this is a vague intimidation thing.

0:31:29 Thomas: We had this concern too. It was like, I just don't want that. Like when you think of things that are going to ruin your fucking day is like, you come home and are you dreading that there's someone in a car waiting for you it's just a you know it's just like a interaction yeah it's just it's

0:31:40 Lydia: Yeah like your kids are around maybe and like it's yeah regardless of who you are.

0:31:46 Thomas: Something that you would want to avoid yeah like you just want to avoid that and both parties would want to avoid that end Gottlieb and Blake Lively gave them every chance to avoid that but now when they've filed their suit against you and you haven't heard anything that would tell me if I'm Blake Lively and I'm like Lively's lawyers oh they want to do fucking process servers on us they want to do that annoying bullshit maybe all Olivia Wilde or whatever like maybe they want to create like some embarrassing embarrassing thing like that. So then we get to the 18th and Gottlieb emails and says, Mr. Freeman, and we read this just to remind you, but with more context, do you want to serve us? Like you, you we've seen that you've sued us. We'll accept service on our client's behalf. We're not make you do the expense of hiring a process server. Like let's, do I just do that? Let's just do that. You want to just be like normal. Can you be fucking normal?

0:32:30 Lydia: Yeah yeah exactly.

0:32:30 Thomas: Essentially they don't hear that day. And I have to imagine they're getting nervous about, again, it's just, you don't want want to be served. It's annoying, especially because then what happens is the thing where a young female employee literally filed a police report because she was kind of spooked by someone following her at night.

0:32:46 Lydia: Someone following her. Mm hmm right.

0:32:49 Thomas: And so then the next day, Gottlieb writes that thing that we covered. And this is the part that was kind interesting that I'm not sure we fully explained with Anne. I think because of this unpleasant thing and a police rapport, I think Gottliebs did something a little, what I understand is unconventional, but I get it, which is after not hearing anything back from Friedman. Total radio silence. Filed the waivers, but made sure to put in the letter to the judge. These filings utilize the standard AO 399 forms, which reference a request to waive service of a summons in this action. However, defendants Ms. Lively and Mr. Reynolds were not requested to waave service by counsel for plaintiffs in this act. Nonetheless, our clients have voluntarily waived service and communicated the same to Mr. Brian Friedman, who appears to to be counsel of record for plaintiffs in this matter alongside notice counsel. So it's a little weird because normally you don't file your own waiver of service like the other party does that.

0:33:45 Lydia: Gottlieb just served themselves selves, basically.

0:33:47 Thomas: Yeah, they sort of serve themselves. And what's interesting, though, is that gets accepted and it starts the 60 day clock. And we can tell that because of the docket. The docket just says, all right. Yeah. And I guess that's the clerk. So we don't know for sure if the clerk just decided to do this, if they ran it by the judge and were like, hey, how do we do we process that? Because If you were the clerk that like nothing has happened, you know, it could be like, well, they sent us a letter, but since Friedman didn't request the waiver, you can't really just waive yourself. But I think the fact that the court accepted this and started the clock, I think tells you how fucking weird it is what Friedman is doing.

0:34:23 Thomas: I just think this never happens. I think there's almost never a time from my understanding where someone just radio silence, you try to accept, you try To waive service, try to save the trouble of the process server and the other side is just like silent. And so I think that is probably why, unless what happened is a clerk just out of habit was like, oh, here's this for him. I'll do it. I mean, that's possible, I guess. But either way, I don't think that's at all on Gottlieb. I think I think it's reasonable for Gottliebs to in full disclosure, tell the judge, hey, they didn't request this, but like we're waiving it anyway, just because this is ridiculous. This is ridiculous. This is fucking ridiculous because this is fucking ridiculous what's happening. And then, so that's all what we already told you with not as much detail. But then what we didn't have at that time is this letter motion from Wayfarer on January 22nd.

0:35:12 Lydia: So on January 22nd, we get something that hits the docket. And we'll read through this. This is filed by Kevin Fritz of Meister, Selig, and Fine. And it says, Dear Judge Lyman, we represent Wayfair Studios, LLC, Justin Baldoni, Jamie Heath, Steve Sarowitz, it ends with us, Melissa Nathan, the agency group, and Jennifer Abel, collectively the Wayfair parties in the above-referenced action commenced by Blake Lively. Most of the Wayfair parties are also plaintiffs in the other above-referenced action against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Sloan, and Vision PR. The two cases have been designated as related pursuant to the court's rules for the Division of Business.

0:35:48 Thomas: So just to note, you said this is Kevin Fritz from Meister, Selig, and Fine PLLC. So that's not Friedman's firm, which is interesting, but it is another firm. Both Friedman and this firm are representing Wayfarer parties, essentially.

0:36:02 Lydia: All right, continuing on. In accordance with Rule 1D of Your Honor's Individual Practices and Civil Cases, the Wayfair parties respectfully Well, and I guess fact check here, it wasn't different methods. They had to use process servers for everybody. Yeah, it's the same method, just different dates for everybody, no

0:36:25 Thomas: Oh, why do they have to do different methods on different dates? Yeah, you're right. It was the same method. Good point. Had anyone, do we know of anyone who accepted electronic service?

0:36:39 Lydia: One did, no one, no.

0:36:40 Thomas: So yeah, it wasn't different methods. Okay.

0:36:42 Lydia: Yeah, and different dates is accurate. You know, we mentioned that the corporate entities were served pretty much immediately, and then Melissa Nathan, Jen Abel, and Jamie Heath were all served January 8th. Steve Sarowitz was served January 10th, and Justin Baldoni was served Jan. 16th.

0:36:52 Thomas: So who was even, oh, well, the Gottlieb emails on the 19th are more about service the other way, I guess. Yeah, so at that point, Gottliebs and Blake Lively have accepted, accepted okay fuck face I guess we're doing the service in person or whatever because they're not I guess so we've been reading the January 31st Baldoni amended complaint and that's when we got to the whole try to serve them in the midst of the fires and that'S why we're even doing this pause right I didn't even think about the fact that bullshit claim was in the January 16th first complaint and so that's went in that letter and I think I didn'T fully process this when we've talked to Ann, in that email from Gottlieb on the 19th, he said, we asked you to comply with the obligation to avoid unnecessary expenses, blah, blah. Back in December, when Ms. Lively filed her complaint, and again in January, and each time you refused to even respond, instead forcing us to go to the time and expense of serving all your clients, after which, parenthetical, you appear to have taken the position that our clients were at fault for attempting to effectuate personal service, even though you could have avoided all that by simply simply complying with your obligations under rule four. So I didn't make the connection that that's because without saying anything, without ever responding on the 16th, they filed the fucking lawsuit saying, I can't believe this. They're serving us personally. That January 16th complaint, the not the amended one, that's 179 pages.

0:38:19 Thomas: So you can file a whole ass 179 page complaint, but you can't send a one word fucking email saying, fine, we accept service. And you're going to blame Blake Lively for that. It's fucking nonsense.

0:38:30 Lydia: Yeah, that is – that's absolutely insane. Okay, back to the letter. Meanwhile, in the Wayfair case, the Lively Parties filed waivers of service pursuant to federal rule of Civil Procedure 4D, which waivers incorrectly, in parentheses, affirm that the Wayfare Parties requested that the Lively Parties waive service even though the Wayfarer Parties made no such request.

0:38:51 Thomas: If you'll remember, I pointed out that, sure, the waivers, because it's a standard fucking form that you download from the goddamn government, from the court website. Yeah, the waiver says that, but he said explicitly in his letter, they did not request this. Yeah. He's like trying to catch him in a gotcha.

0:39:00 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, Gottlieb agrees with you. You made no request.

0:39:10 Lydia: As a result of their misrepresentation in the waivers of service, the Lively Party's inequitably obtained

0:39:13 Thomas: No, no, hold on. Note that how careful of lying this is. And this isn't Friedman, I guess, you know, this is that other firm, but like note how careful that is. As a result of their misrepresentation in the waivers of service. Very carefully saying their mis representation, even though they didn't. Yeah, it's in the form because they didn'T misrepresent it. But very carefully, like a fucking lawyer in the wavers of service. Okay. Yeah.

0:39:35 Lydia: The benefit of a 60 -day period in which to respond to the complaint in the Wayfair case. According to the docket in the Wayfair case, the lively party's deadline to respond to the complain is March 20th, 2025.

0:39:51 Thomas: Well, that was up to the, again, either the judge did that.

0:39:54 Lydia: You could have had that too.

0:39:55 Thomas: Good point. You could have just fucking done that, but either the judge did That or the clerk did that or what, but it's not, I don't think you could possibly blame Gottlieb for that. They were 100 % up front and said they didn't request this, but we're doing it anyway. And it was up, again, the court, whoever, they could have just not done anything, but they set the deadline. Fuck you!

0:40:14 Lydia: And then during a January 21st, 2025 telephone call, we attempted to confer in good faith with counsel for the lively parties about an extension of time. This, yeah, that really got me. Attempted to confer In Good Faith after we completely ghosted them for weeks. For weeks.

0:40:28 Thomas: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. Just to make sure this is all clear. After all this fucking horseshit where they made Gottlieb and Lively, they made Lively pay for the process server, do the whole bullshit because they ghosted. And the one thing that we've kept telling you is when you don't waive personal service, you only get 21 days. And so now they're going to say, well, Lively inequitably obtained the benefit of the 60 day period. And so we called in good faith and we called Lively and we said, hey, we want an extension of time until March 20th. Fucking why?

0:41:07 Lydia: Yeah.

0:41:07 Thomas: Why should you get that? Why on earth should they grant you that? Why should the other party? Why shit Blake Lively? That after all you've done, you fucking complained in your lying complaint on January 16th. You've lied and said they harassed you during the fires and the blah, blah, you lied and did not accept waiver of service and made them do that. And then you're going to call and say, in good faith, we want still the 60 days instead of the 21. Fuck you.

0:41:31 Lydia: Unbelievable. Unbelievable. The same deadline that the lively party's enjoying the Wayfair case. Yeah.

0:41:36 Thomas: Yeah. You mean the lively parties who accepted the fucking service or would have, I guess, or tried.

0:41:42 Lydia: Tried to just serve themselves. And save you guys the hassle.

0:41:45 Thomas: Well, actually that's a good point. It's not like Baldoni and them still did a process server, did they?

0:41:50 Lydia: I think they did, but they must have called them off after the letter.

0:41:53 Thomas: No, but that doesn't matter. So if Baldoni was taking the position that, no, that wasn't anything, you didn't actually waive service, they should have still served them. So they're trying to have it 15 fucking ways. Well, it was improper that you inequitably obtained the benefit of the second, even though we didn't request the way of service. Now, did we serve you? No.

0:42:07 Lydia: All to their benefit. Yeah. Yeah."

0:42:17 Thomas: Now, so we treated it as though you waived the service, but you didn't. What? Good.

0:42:22 Lydia: Specifically, we noted that such extension of time was appropriate because, one, the two cases are designated as related and likely will be consolidated pursuant to Rule 42A, and two, the Wayfair Party's lead counsel, Brian Friedman Esquire, lost his home in the recent Los Angeles wildfires and need additional time to coordinate responses to the complaint in the Lively case. In an email delivered earlier today, the Lived Party's counsel refused to consent to an extension of time, contending that A, the cases are not yet consolidated, B, the Lively Party's intend to move to dismiss the Wayfair case, and C, counsel requested that the Wayfair Parties waive service but no waiver was executed.

0:42:51 Thomas: And B, fuck you. Yes. Duh. That's the fucking rule. This makes me insane. This is what drives me fucking. This is so blatantly dirtbag lying bullshit tactics and then crying in your complaint when they tried to serve us when there was a fire. Fuck you, you assholes.

0:43:19 Lydia: Insensitively. The Lively Party's ignored the effect of the Los Angeles wildfires on Mr. Friedman and his law office. Yeah.

0:43:26 Thomas: Come on. Yeah, sure.

0:43:28 Lydia: In sum, the lively parties falsely engineered an extension of time until March 20th, 2025 to respond to the complaint in the Wayfair case, but now refuse to consent to the same deadline for the Wayfare parties, even though doing so is in the interest of justice and efficiency in cases that are not only related but likely will be consolidated. For these reasons, the Wayfair parties respectfully request an extension of time until March 20th to respond to the complaint. In the lively case, no date has yet been set for the party's next appearance. Respectfully submitted, Kevin Fritz.

0:43:39 Thomas: Falsely engineered and they left out the so but okay oh it's in the interest of efficiency really the fucking audacity and I also love that fritz and that law firm very I think this was very fucking intentional because like they were the ones who filed this because mr friedman he can't his house burned down so yeah uh did he just file a 472 million page complaint against against Blake Lively mere days ago? Yes. But now, I mean, now he's just, he has to rebuild his home. So he can't, he can't even write this motion. We have to write kind of on his behalf. We don't even know where he is. Like it's just so transparently fucking dirtbag

0:44:08 Lydia: Audacity. Mm -hmm. Mm -huh. Yeah.

0:44:42 Thomas: Bullshit. I hate this. This is all the worst shit about lawyers.

0:44:48 Lydia: Yeah, it is. All in one place.

0:44:48 Thomas: It's lying. It'S bullshit. And a bunch of people, I guess just buy into it because forget everything else about the, he said, she said of the dispute of the harassment. You can go ahead and forget all of that for the moment. This is in black and white fucking horseshit. There's no excuse for this. It's one thing if you want to say, no, it's not, you know, I'm glad I realized the fact that like they didn't even physically serve Blake Lively because that, that makes it even more stupid. Like you could maybe say, Hey, we are are playing hardcore tactics here because we think we're the victims and we want to do physical service in person, personal service, because we only want to give them the 21 days. That's that. But then once Gottlieb does that letter, they didn't write to the court. They didn't do anything. They apparently didn't go on to serve them. Is there anywhere they didn't do personal service? Therefore, endorsing the idea that you didn'T need to. And then they want to cry about, well, well, we never, we never offered a waiver of service. We never offered that. Really? I guess they could argue like maybe they're still going to serve them personally. Like we still have 90 days. We still like, it's just bullshit. It's fucking transparent bullshit.

0:45:18 Lydia: Right. Nope. Nope. They didn't do anything. Nope. Agreed.

0:46:04 Thomas: God, I hate this so much. Assholes. Yeah.

0:46:06 Lydia: Well, I mean, after all that, Lyman did grant them an extension.

0:46:09 Thomas: And you know, it was funny. I do the belt and suspenders and suspenders in belt. I, even after we talked to Ann and even after We've read MJ and talked to MJ, I still check things with chat GPT just to make sure not like chat GPTs going to give me the authoritative opinion, but I think it's good for asking. I present everything completely neutrally to just see what the neutral robot response would be. And it basically said, well, this is fucking weird, man.

0:46:35 Thomas: It said all that. It's said like, well yeah, what Friedman is doing makes no sense. I don't understand why you wouldn't just respond. It set all that stuff. And then what's so funny, the reason I bring it up is it also said, what's likely going to happen though, is that the judge will grant the time. I thought that was interesting because ChatGPT totally called it and it tried to answer a little bit too much of like, well, this is the tactics and the whatever when I was really just trying to ask, like, is this fucking normal? You know, but whatever. After answering in that way and saying like, yeah, this this is weird. It said and I didn't even ask. It's that the court will probably cut through the rhetoric and grant both sides the same response deadline. Judges usually want parity and related slash consolidated cases. But reputationally, Gottlieb has scored early points by being the first to paper the dispute. I think that's a stupid way of putting it but like it is interesting that chat gpt totally called that like the judge would still just grant it because like if you explain this to any sane human they'd be like jesus I hope the judge just says fuck you no way this is bullshit but they don't do that the judges want to go out of their way far from being biased against baldoni judge lyman granted this fucking request this completely unreasonable bullshit request it's like if vous had a term paper due on December 31st. And your teacher is like, where's the paper? Where's, where're you going to turn that in? Week later. Hey, you haven't turned in your term paper. Are you, do you want to, are you going to turn it in? Are you still in this class? Another week goes by. I guess you're not turning that in. Another few days. I can't believe that they wanted us to turn in a term paper when there was a fire.

0:48:09 Thomas: It's like, you mean the one that was due how long before the fire? Okay, let's talk about the fire. Please, Lydia, you did so much research.

0:48:17 Lydia: I did. Okay.

0:48:18 Thomas: You might as well tell us all. Share it with us.

0:48:21 Lydia: So the fire, there were a number of fires that were happening in Southern California at this time. And Brian Friedman was impacted by the Palisades fire. That one was huge. That was 23 ,448 acres. It started on January 7th, and it was contained January 31st. So we're talking about like basically the whole month of January, that area was on fire.

0:48:42 Thomas: To make not in any way make light of the fire, I hope that should be beyond abundantly clear that these fires were horrible.

0:48:48 Lydia: They were horrific.

0:48:48 Thomas: We have so many people. We're in California. We have many friends who went through this. Scary time. But importantly, that started, you said, January 7th.

0:48:54 Lydia: It's January 7th, right?

0:48:56 Thomas: Okay, so a week after the first email saying, hey, do you want to just fucking ding us? Do you want us to accept service? Uh -huh.

0:49:01 Lydia: Yes. Yep. Yep. A week after the first email, the same day as the second email.

0:49:05 Thomas: Well, you see, Friedman knew the fire was going to burn down his house and so therefore was not responding to email. Right.

0:49:12 Lydia: So then I was curious about because they're really trying to blame Blake Lively about like being so insensitive about serving people while they were trying to go and stuff. And so I was like, well, you know, they didn't accept service. So that also meant that there's a process server, a poor process server who's driving Diving around while things are on fire, trying to track down people.

0:49:32 Thomas: If they're trying to make it out like it was, you don't understand. We're dodging flames like we're just flaming branches. We're falling on us. And then Blake Lively from her mansion in New York personally ordered. Yeah, it's just so fucking stupid. But then you and I were like, well, if it was so bad, how is there a process server that was fine? Line, especially trying to drive around LA normally is impossible.

0:49:43 Lydia: Yeah. Deployed is the word they used. Yeah.

0:49:56 Thomas: But like, I also want to point out something that I noticed, which is they argue this both ways. So we were talking about Friedman a minute ago in the complaint. They just talk about Lively. Once again, quoting from January 16th was when they first gave us this line of fucking horseshit. Lively even went so far as to serve her lawsuit on the Los Angeles based defendants as they evacuated their homes. So they evacuated in the midst of devastating fires engulfing their city. Now, how would they serve them if they evacuated? How would that happen? That's weird.

0:50:23 Lydia: Right. So they didn't.

0:50:26 Thomas: On a day when defendants were gathering their kids, pets and prepping go bag. Oh, so now they haven't. Okay. So, so they haven't quite evacuate. I get it. So they were prepping the go bag, it said as they evacuate their homes. Fortunately, the process server caught them, I guess, mid go bag and was like, Hey, you're about to leave all of you, all of them ,I guess. Um, good thing I caught you, which by the way, I said that being served is not pleasant and it's not like it's, it's pleasant. But it's also you don't get murdered like you just someone gives you papers that's all like literally that's what it is and when your fucking lawyer or you we I guess we don't know who ordered the code red here but when you and your lawyer have decided you're not just gonna ghost completely ghost the other side I don't have a ton of sympathy for when you get served I've actually none for when You Get Served if I had told my lawyers fuck no I'm not accepting service and And then I get served by Andrew Torrez back in the day. That's kind of on me.

0:50:43 Lydia: Pretty spread out. Yeah. Yeah.

0:51:22 Thomas: In no way would I be like, how dare you? That's stupid. So in that complaint, just to finish this thought, that was about the defendants, right? It was like, oh, you served us in the middle. We were on fire. We had to stop, drop, and roll. And then they're like, here's your lawsuit. And then in this letter, all of a sudden, it's not about that. Then it's about, hey, we need this extension. And now it's like three of your grandmas have died by the time you're done with this class because you need an extension on the paper and you've already used two of your grandmas who already died. Well, you see, I had another adoptive grandma because now we're using the Los Angeles wildfires to say, hey, we need more time. The Lightning Party's ignored the effect of the Los Angeles Wildfires on Mr. Friedman. That's all about more time, which again is somewhat undercut by the fact that you filed a fucking 179 page lawsuit on January 16th, six days prior to this and January 16th after the fires, I don't know when he lost his house or whatever. So they're just using, they're milking this for all the sympathy they can. It's the biggest false victim bullshit.

0:52:27 Thomas: This, this comes from a side that allegedly hates false victims. And this is the most dishonest false victim fucking dog shit I've ever read. So it's two different things. I just wanted to clarify that because in the lawsuit, it's about the people you're serving in this letter. It's about, oh, we need more time because Mr. Friedman lost his thing. And you can't combine those. Those are two different things. And so now when you look into like how serving these defendants would actually go, it doesn't matter that Friedman lost his house. That has no connection when you're because you don't serve the lawyer. Yeah.

0:52:56 Lydia: He's not receiving service. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So I wanted to look at the people who were actually going to be served and where their houses were in relation to where the fires were. And so I went to the New York Times and got a map of the fires around LA. And then I compared it to the addresses on each of the effectuated service forms for each of these folks. And dann I plotted them on my map because Because that's a totally normal response. And I do not know that any of them would have been mandatory evacuations.

0:53:33 Thomas: So there are three people who were anywhere near the fires. We got Melissa Nathan. We We got Jen Abel. We got Jamie Heath. They're the closest ones. Baldoni, not even close. He lives in Ojai.

0:53:47 Lydia: Well, and to that point, it's such a safe place that he let people who were evacuating the L .A. area stay in his house.

0:53:56 Thomas: Right, right. Which, hey, nice of him. But that tells you he wasn't at risk. I'm looking at the map. It's people. There are a lot of people, I'm sure, who are from this area who know that was not close. He's not in any danger. These are the only people in danger. And you don't get to talk about Friedman because that has no fucking impact on the service thing.

0:54:13 Thomas: Because you don'T... Specifically, Friedman said, no... Well, FriedMAN ghosted. So you serve the person, not their lawyer. And so the only people we're talking about are Melissa Nathan, Jen Abel, and Jamie Heath. And they were all served by one person on the 8th.

0:54:26 Lydia: Yes. Yes. They're all served by one person on the 8th who's driving around all of L. A.

0:54:30 Thomas: That's so hard to do in LA. Because we got someone, Jamie Heath is somewhere near Englewood. Jen Abels is like Beverly Hills. And Melissa Nathan is more toward Burbank.

0:54:40 Lydia: North Hollywood. Yeah.

0:54:42 Thomas: Someone did that all in one day. That tells you the fires were not close to here.

0:54:46 Lydia: North Hollywood, yeah. Yeah. I mean, and like there might have been bad smoke and the air quality probably wasn't great. They were being served the day that the sunset fire started, which is like in between Melissa Nathan's house and Jennifer Abel's house. And I know that one was like, that's the Hollywood Hills area. And so there were concerns about that. But you're also not talking about a terrain that is just open land with like trees, right? You're talking about a lot of hills, a lot of canyons, a lot of freeways, very, very, very large freeways. And anything's possible with the Santa Ana winds and stuff and like what might happen with the fires. But usually if a fire is on the other side of some of these major freeways and like a canyon, you're going to feel pretty okay, even if as the crow flies, it's not that far.

0:55:31 Thomas: Yeah. Not that it wasn't scary by any means, but like they were not in the fires. Do we know if they were under evacuation orders or anything?

0:55:34 Lydia: Oh, of course not. Yeah. I don't think they were just based off of what I was like looking at here with the fires, I was looking at like the evacuation lines from the New York Times and stuff like what those areas look like. And I do not think any of them were under evacuation orders. They might have voluntarily evacuated.

0:55:53 Thomas: I looked, I found the evacuation orders. I believe it's around January 7th, January 8th. I even looked through January 15th just to make sure, just to fully cover it. They're not even close. There's evacuation order and then there's evacuation warning. If they were even in the warning zone, if they Were even close to the warning zone, I'd be like, yeah, okay. You know, maybe, maybe they're not Even close for people who know this area, the fire the palisades fire the evacuation warning is around the 405 at this time it's like that's the yellow they haven't been ordered but it's like hey warning when it comes to like thinking west to east essentially because all of these people we're talking about live east of this by a significant amount and the warning is not even is barely on the 405 and they all are not even close to that they're miles away from that I can't believe that we're even having to do this stupid fucking exercise, but it's just like, this is so obviously a bullshit lie. Yeah.

0:56:52 Lydia: Yeah. It absolutely is. It's, as you said, just milking for sympathy. And it's just, it's incredibly disingenuous. And honestly, like kind of a slap in the face to people who actually were impacted like brian friedman I mean he truly lost his house and so to put some of these folks in that same like try and it's like a stolen valor sort of situation

0:57:13 Thomas: Yeah, and it's so intentionally blends the idea of lost his house with the other people who aren't anywhere near it, you know, and then it's like blending those in your mind. You're supposed to blend those two together and envision Blake Lively conniving and sending someone after the last ember of their house falls and they're they fall to their knees and they are crying. Blake Lively's process server YOU 'VE BEEN SERVED hands them a document so fucking stupid hmm

0:57:37 Lydia: And then just uh just a quick notice you know I mentioned that they were all served on january 8th melissa nathan's housemate received service for her it's just listen as john doe and it quote housemate don't don't know what that means and then jen abel's fiance who is also described as a housemate chris fanger received service on her behalf as well and jamie heath accepted service himself

0:58:01 Thomas: Okay so it seems like it was fine you see why I'm eternally mad at this bullshit I hate the injustice of it I hate it I hate the unfairness of it I hate the whiny pathetic fucking lying and the people eating it up it drives me insane and so we do this it's my therapy to gain some connection to reality and to hopefully find Find a group of fellow travelers who also appreciate reality and want to live in that reality and don't accept when people try to fucking create their own realities.

0:58:33 Lydia: Yeah the fires moral of the story the fires were awful brian friedman lost his house but he was capable of working because he filed a huge lawsuit and also the other people who were served were not impacted by the fires in the way that the wayfarer parties try to make it seem

0:58:37 Thomas: Fire's bad. Yeah. Yeah. So stupid. And he could have just sent an email on January fucking 1st or 2nd. I'll give him to the 2nd, why not?

0:58:58 Lydia: Say yes.

0:59:00 Thomas: Also, December 31st, because it's literally just like, yes, that's it. That's the email. You have to check with your client and be like, hey, can I accept this? And I also, not for nothing. The norm is, even if you haven't heard back from your client, you still respond to the fucking lawyer. The other lawyer isn't like the bad guy. This got you just say, hey, because this happens. Hey, I have a client who's just nuts. I can't get him to accept service. So sorry. That's what you do. You send the email as a lawyer.

0:59:45 Thomas: Oh, were any of them after the time where he couldn't be doing anything because of the fire?

0:59:53 Lydia: Statement released to USA Today. January 3rd, he had an on -camera interview with NBC Nightly News. January 7th, he did an on camera appearance on the Megyn Kelly show.

1:00:04 Thomas: Oh, weird. I thought his house burned down. He can't do any of that.

1:00:06 Lydia: Yeah. And January 16th, he also released a statement in line with, you know, his lawsuit and still never responded to the emails.

1:00:14 Thomas: Unbelievable. Fucking dirtbags.

1:00:24 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

1:00:24 Thomas: So that's that little detour. Armed with how fucking bullshit, stupid nonsense that is, we're going to go. Well, what are you talking about? Out.

1:00:31 Lydia: Let's close out the complaint. Well, let'S close out this part of the complaint

1:00:36 Thomas: As for today's episode, though, just a couple more sentences here to round out a big section of the complaint and then that'll be it. And we'll leave it for the next episode to do that like timeline reset part where we go back to the beginning. So why don't you read the last parts there?

1:00:53 Lydia: This is their thesis. At bottom, this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press. This is a case of two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio.

1:01:06 Thomas: You got to read the paragraph 19. It's just so hysterical.

1:01:11 Lydia: By bringing this complaint, the Wayfair parties commit themselves to seeking and proving the facts based not on insinuations built from selectively edited and context -free text snippets, but by putting all the evidence before the court and the public. When the Wayfair parties have their day in court the jury will recognize that even the most powerful celebrity cannot bend the truth to her will yeah reminder Blake Lively is the most powerful celebrity apparently on earth

1:01:33 Thomas: So fucking dramatic. So dramatic. Well, yeah, but she really needed this movie, though. She both needed it and it's so powerful. Again, if she wanted to take over a movie, she could have just done it. If she's this powerful, why all the sexual harassments? I've said it a million times. She could have said, hey, you've signed me on. I'm powerful Blake Lively. Give me the fucking reins to the movie. It's my ship now. Look at me. I'm the captain now. What are you going to do about it?

1:01:54 Lydia: Yeah you're not the director anymore yeah you can stay on as as a the lead actor you can stay on as the lead actress you're part of the production studio I can't kick you off there but I'm gonna remove you as director if

1:01:58 Thomas: I'm so fucking powerful. But you'll refer to me as her highness and you will not look me in the eye. Yeah, it's fucking stupid. All right. Well, this was fun. I learned a lot. I yelled. I feel slightly better.

1:02:07 Lydia: She had all this power yeah Yeah, there's so much she could have done. Yeah. You're going to have to go on vocal rest.

1:02:15 Thomas: We're going to... It's true. True gavel rest too

1:02:19 Lydia: Yeah. It's all worn out.

1:02:19 Thomas: My gavel arm I got it's in a sling I'm on gavel rest everybody that's what I'll say to the court may it please the court I'm on gavel rest um yeah and uh next episode we'll be right back into the trenches the trenches of Wayfair v. Lively

1:02:27 Lydia: May it please the court. See

1:02:38 Thomas: All right thanks for listening everyone we'll see you then

1:02:40 Lydia: Ya.

1:02:59 Anne: We're at war now this isn't what I went to fucking law school