Lively v. Baldoni 59 - Causes of Action, Cause for Celebration!

Transcript

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

0:00:26 Thomas: Gavel in, gavel in. I've got, hold on, let me dust off a spare gavel. Do we have a third gavel in the building? I'm Thomas, that's Lydia, and we are joined by M .J. Morley. How's it going, M .G.? Cue the noise right when we...

0:00:38 MJ: It's great. Thank you guys for having me back.

0:00:42 MJ: I know it was a dog. She just burst through my it was so good. My dog just burst through the office doors while you did that great introduction.

0:00:51 Lydia: Get another gavel, hon. Get a fourth gavel.

0:00:53 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Do they have dog gavels?

0:00:56 MJ: She's ready. She is ready for me to not get too animated, but she's here.

0:01:01 Thomas: Ergonomically, dog paw gavel's, I think, are different. It's just a whole different grip. Yeah.

0:01:04 Lydia: Well, they don't have, yeah, they don't know what to do. They don't want to have the thumb situation. So, yeah.

0:01:09 Thomas: They got to do a thing where they like like, paw at something, and then that triggers, like, a gavel noise or something. Like, yeah. Well, we are excited. We really just had you on here to celebrate us being done going over this document. It's pretty much mainly that. God.

0:01:14 Lydia: Right.

0:01:20 MJ: I mean, I'm so I'm thrilled for you all 224 pages. You've made it.

0:01:28 Lydia: That's too much.

0:01:28 Thomas: Yeah. I deeply regret it.

0:01:31 MJ: But it was so good.

0:01:32 Thomas: Oh, that's nice.

0:01:33 MJ: No, I don't. I've loved listening to every single episode, so have my children. And we made it, we're almost through and we all know so much more because you guys went through every detail. So I think, listen to the podcast.

0:01:35 Lydia: Aw.

0:01:46 Thomas: That's so nice. You heard it here. MJ is one of our three listeners. Biggest claim to fame. Yeah. Yeah. That's the danger of listening to the show. You eventually just have to become part of it. It's so niche. You know, I'm

0:01:47 Lydia: Thanks, MJ. And we reward her by bringing her on the show. Yeah, exactly. So

0:02:03 Thomas: Excited. We're gonna go through, we're going to go through the causes of action. We get to hear some actual legal analysis instead of our pontificating. It's going to be a lot of fun. So I think we'll go to our first break and then we'll get to it. All right, MJ, so we got all the way there. I'm trying to think, do you have any thoughts on the whole, I mean, these are points we've made before, but I do just want to get maybe some reiteration on this. Thing was too fucking long, right? I mean, come on, like how, how many, many complaints are this fucking long.

0:02:22 Ad: [Ad break 1 — ad music]

0:02:38 MJ: I have never, ever seen a complaint this long. And I know that I have not practiced for decades, AIDS, but I have asked multiple people if they have ever seen a complaint this long, and they all say no. And I'm looking at the first cause of action, which is, as you both know, civil extortion. And if 211, we're on page 211 out of 224.

0:03:03 Lydia: Crazy. Yeah.

0:03:03 MJ: So the actual causes of action are what, 13 pages versus 210 pages of just, you know, the fun stuff that you went through the past few months. It's It's crazy.

0:03:15 Thomas: What's like a normal length? I was guessing like, I don't know, or not guessing I'm a semi -informed, but I was saying like 20, 25 pages max. Like what's the normal? Am I, am I in the ballpark?

0:03:25 MJ: Yes. And that would honestly probably be long. I filed a motion to dismiss last week and the complaint was nine pages, nine pages.

0:03:28 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Well, cause here's the thing. You probably don't want the judge reading it to want to kill themselves. Is that, you know, know, like part of the consideration.

0:03:39 Lydia: Flooding

0:03:40 MJ: A hundred percent. And I, I think I've said this to you guys before, like one of the first mentors I had as a litigator, the first complaint I read, he was like, or I wrote, he was this is too detailed. Has anyone ever told you plead thin and win? I'm like, what do you mean? It's like, you, you never want something in your complaint to be wrong, right? And the other side to be like, that's, and it's fun when you're drafting a motion to dismiss and you're like, you don't know what I know. Um, and you guys just did that going through the facts. You're like, what, what are you talking about? Oh yeah, this, this complaint was not written, oh yeah, yeah, let's write for, not for Judge Lyman, but let's right for people to read it on YouTube, tube, so they can make money. I'm sorry, I'm just going there. That's who they wrote the complaint for. Yeah.

0:04:09 Thomas: Yeah. Boy, these lawyers took a different tact than what you're talking about. They're like put so many wrong things in that you overwhelms people, I think. Yeah, yeah. No, I also I also think I think it's also just like for one, I think these narcissists think they're actually right. Like I think Baldoni thinks he's right. And I think when you're like that, you think, oh, if only I can just explain, surely I will convince everyone how right I am. And that just adds up and adds up. And everything has a way to look at it that he's in the right. And beyond that, they just repeated themselves to death. Seriously, I'm not putting any more time into this complaint. I can't take it anymore. But if I were to, maybe I'll see if like an AI can do it easily. Cause I don't feel like doing this work. I just want to ask and map out like what was actually like unique content in this complaint. Like if you just, without even cutting anything, like just purely reducing

0:04:22 Lydia: The zone. Yeah, well, and especially if it's longer, right? Because then you can, like, you can milk it for content for a long time and create, I mean, like we're doing, I guess. We've, we've had to do a lot. Yeah.

0:05:31 Thomas: Like an Excel, when you do like the data validation, you clear duplicates. Like we could just do that. Like how long would it be? It's, it could be half the length. I don'T even know. It'S crazy. Yeah. Fuck this complaint and the timeline it wrote in on. I agree. So bad.

0:05:35 Lydia: Yeah, exactly.

0:05:41 MJ: I agree, this is crazy, this complaint and the timeline that went with it, or what made me be like, oh, I'm not neutral. Like, I can't, I cannot be neutral, because this is who did this, right? Like, this, this is not legal practice. And yeah, I'm at that

0:05:58 Thomas: Yeah. You can't, I mean, I did the same thing. Like when we first started, it's like, honest to God, I truly can't tell you. I'm not, I won't waste too much time on it, but I'm among the people who would know the least about either of these two celebrities. Like prior, prior to this, like I, like, honestly, I would have known nothing about them. Like me and a few of the people Who helped people climb Mount Everest or something. I feel like that, those would be the people who know least about these people. I go into it like totally just, I don't know what's happening. And within minutes it's like, ah, okay, well, one side is clearly lying at least way more than the other side.

0:06:00 MJ: Point.

0:06:32 Lydia: Yeah, yeah.

0:06:33 Thomas: You know, it doesn't mean I have to endorse everything ever said by Blake or anything, but you could just, it's so quick that you can be like, well, that's clearly not right. So it's pretending to be neutral, I think that's actually kind of dishonest in a way. I went into it neutral, but it's, it's like, if you're still neutral after reading a bunch of stuff that really makes it clear how much one side is lying, then what are you doing?

0:06:57 MJ: Yeah, no, I agree.

0:06:57 Lydia: Do you think, though, because there have been recently some creators that used to be Baldoni -leaning and now feel more neutral, do you think that that is a reasonable position to be in, like moving that direction?

0:07:03 Thomas: You know, really? It's closer.

0:07:15 Lydia: Yeah.

0:07:15 MJ: I mean, I think anyone want you to be more neutral or more lively than Baldoni. So I'm not a good person to ask. So I did go to the hearing that they had on summary judgment. And I think that there were people that went to that, that maybe were super pro Baldoni and thought the judge was also pro Baldomi. And they listened to the questioning and they listened the arguments. And some of those people may have left and been more neutral. Some of those People left and I can see from social media that they just you know, dug in on their position.

0:07:20 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

0:07:21 Lydia: Yeah.

0:07:49 MJ: But I think if you were there, there's no way that you could be like, oh, Blake Lively has no case. If you listen to the line of questioning and the way the lawyers kind of, the way they presented their cases was very interesting. And I don't think you could walk away from that being like, she's got nothing.

0:07:49 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:08:06 Lydia: I can't wait to get to that eventually. I know you have tons of notes from sitting in and listening to that hearing. Can't wait.

0:08:12 Thomas: Boy, we'll be dead by that by the time that happens.

0:08:14 Lydia: Yeah, we will. We will.

0:08:14 Thomas: We'll see. But to the matter at hand, let's go through these cause of action. Unless you have anything else you think we ought to know about the broader, you know, just broadly speaking about the complaint before we get going.

0:08:17 MJ: Yeah, just not a fan, not remotely a fan. That's all I have to say. Yes.

0:08:29 Thomas: Zero out of ten.

0:08:31 MJ: A hundred percent. Nothing from me. We start off with a bang, right? Right? They come in swinging with extortion and they framed it under California law. I think it's really rare that someone actually brings this claim in California. Again, my standard disclaimer, not a California attorney, but I didn't say that there were many cases that actually allow a cause of action for civil extortion. And I think this is one of those claims that comes from like the the old common law and it's actually typically a crime not just someone threatening you, and if I'm looking at this complaint as a the defense attorney, I'm here for Lively or Sloan or Reynolds or Vision PR, which make the case against Lively, but how did Reynold's extort them? How did Leslie Sloane extort? How did her company extort? That's a

0:08:40 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah, yeah. Lively, Reynolds, Sloan, Vision. Huh.

0:09:00 Lydia: Mm hmm, yeah.

0:09:25 MJ: Weird. Immediately I'm like, what? How, how is this claim against all four of them? And then if you keep reading there, it's the Lively parties made threats to the Wayfarer parties that they knew to be wrongful. Just reading through those seven sentences about civil extortion.

0:09:35 Thomas: Huh. Very short sentences too. Yeah, you had so much to say before, and now that they get to the actual law thing, it's like, done. You might as well. Yeah. Oh

0:09:42 MJ: Oh yeah. Without many details.

0:09:43 Lydia: Here, why don't I read that starting at just 317, I guess. The Lively Parties made threats to the Wayfair Parties that they knew to be wrongful, including threats to breach contracts, defame the Wayfarer Parties, and injure. Sentence doesn't end.

0:10:04 Thomas: Oh yeah. And injure. And they forgot to complete their sentence. Okay. Sloppy ass shit. This is the amended complaint. It's the amended complain.

0:10:07 Lydia: Unknown. Yes. The Lived Party's threats. Well, yeah, when you're writing 400 pages. Yeah. The Lively Party's Threats included demands that money, property, services, or other sources of value be conferred upon the Lively Party's without consideration or contractual entitlement thereto.

0:10:20 Thomas: Like what?

0:10:27 Lydia: I don't know.

0:10:27 Thomas: Sorry. No, no. Yeah. No. That painful silence. I guess I'll leave in. Cause no one has any idea what that would be.

0:10:27 MJ: I have nothing. What are you saying here? I have no idea what they're alleging here, which you don't want. This is so vague. What threats did they make? What demands did they make? Why is that not there? And why are you not putting that to a specific person, right? How does Sloan defend herself against this? Like, what threats did I make to Steve Sarowitz?

0:10:38 Thomas: Yeah, yeah.

0:10:54 Lydia: Mm hmm. Yeah.

0:10:55 MJ: What did she do?

0:10:56 Thomas: Well, yeah, I, we might've talked about before, but I really could use a refresher. How does that shit work typically where it's like they're suing everybody, I guess. Right. And then when they say the lively parties. OK, so it's again to go to the text, it says first cause of action, civil extortion against lively Reynolds Sloan and Vision. When they say The Lively Parties, are they saying just lively as in the first part of that? Or does that mean literally everybody?

0:11:01 MJ: So I'm assuming, and I'm scrolling up to the top of the complaint, but that they defined the Lively Parties to be all of those individuals. Everyone but the New York Times is defined as the, the Lively Parties in this complaint. So they're alleging that against all of them, those four. But when you have multiple defendants, you need to say what each one did, right? And that, that is a problem for them in that, how did Vision PR do any of these things that they're allegeing, right? That's

0:11:32 Lydia: Right.

0:11:51 Thomas: Yeah.

0:11:51 Lydia: But, you know, all they can do is they can fall back and say, we wrote 200 pages before. Like, you should have been able to see it.

0:11:57 Thomas: Well, yeah, it does. And we've talked about this before, but I think every complaint does this that I've seen where it's like they hereby repeat, reiterate, reallege and incorporate by reference each and every allegation of the complaint as if set forth fully herein. And so that's the kind of like catch all language to be like, well, everything we just everything you just didn't read because nobody read this. All of that applies to each of these things like entirely. And so you just have to assume like somewhere in that 210 pages previously, there's something that would make this make sense.

0:12:30 MJ: Kind of what they're trying to do here, but to me, it's like, if you're going to plead a claim like this, I'm assuming that, and I don't know this for sure, but there would have to be a heightened standard, like when you plead fraud, you have to say exactly what the fraud was. You can't just be like, the Lively Party is engaged in fraud when you're in your cause of action. And that's kind of what they did here, like the Wayfarer Parties complied with the wrongful demands, but what were the demands, right? Like, why it's pretty easy to spell them out right there, and they didn't do that. And I think that to me, even just pleading civil extortion, that's like a jaw drop to me. I don't think that that's a claim in New York that you can make, right? I don't think that cause of action exists here.

0:12:47 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah.

0:12:58 Lydia: Right?

0:13:11 Thomas: Yeah. What does that signal to you as a lawyer? Is that like, wow, they're getting creative or like, Wow, who did this? Like, what are they talking about? Like, what would that signal to you if you were on the other side of this?

0:13:21 MJ: If I was on the other side of this, I would look exactly at what I need to plead civil extortion or what they need to plea, and then I would point out exactly how they didn't and file a motion to dismiss.

0:13:31 Thomas: Agreed. But I meant if you if you receive this complaint, what is that telling you? What would you think about it?

0:13:36 Lydia: About their strategy.

0:13:36 Thomas: Like, let's just pretend you receive this apropos of nothing. You're like, what the fuck?

0:13:38 MJ: Oh, yeah. Based on the date that this was filed and what was happening at the time, that they wanted this in the press, that Justin Baldoni sued Blake Lively for civil extortion because that sounds really bad. Did Blake Lively extort Justin Baldoni? Did Ryan Reynolds, right? Like that was probably a headline somewhere.

0:13:58 Lydia: Mm

0:13:52 Thomas: Hmm. An angry Reynolds. I always think of that. They had the typo that was like an angry Reynolds and I was for some reason that's forever. Now what I think of.

0:13:59 Lydia: Hmm? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

0:14:02 MJ: Oh yeah. An angry Reynolds. Yeah. No, they want to, you do want to put pressure on in litigation, right. And you might tack on some extra claims, but this one I find is just so, so aggressive and I'm not seeing how it could could possibly have happened, right? There are some claims that I'm like, all right, you know, yeah, file. You're always going to file counterclaims if you can. You're not always going to write a complaint like this and file a separate lawsuit, but you are always going to file a counterclaimed if you have any basis to do so.

0:14:11 Lydia: I

0:14:12 Thomas: Sure.

0:14:22 Thomas: Yeah. Mm hmm. You just want the negotiating, the bargaining power kind of thing, the pressure.

0:14:39 MJ: Exactly. Yeah. But civil extortion is not one of those claims you would typically see.

0:14:40 Thomas: Sure. Well, I think I've asked you this before as well, but like, do you normally put like your best stuff first or no?

0:14:50 MJ: Yeah, 100 percent. My yes, if I'm filing a complaint, my strongest cause of action is the first one, not the last one.

0:14:58 Thomas: Huh.

0:15:00 Lydia: Think what's also really interesting to think about here is the parties that are part of this lawsuit, the Wayfair parties, include folks that are very well skilled and well versed in SEO and PR strategies, marketing strategies, like keeping in mind what is the scariest sounding thing that we can potentially allege here, because that's going to get picked up by scrapers for Google. And now all of those people are going to see the word extortion. And that's going to drive engagement. And That's going to Drive content creation in favor of our parties. I think knowing that the parties consist of people who are really well educated, and their career is in making smart choices there, I think you can kind of see it makes sense that they would choose something like that too.

0:15:08 Thomas: Wow. Yeah.

0:15:50 MJ: I agree with that. I don't think at the beginning of this, I would have thought that, but I think you're exactly right, Lydia, is that there are buzzwords in here and there's, yeah, I completely agree with you.

0:16:00 Thomas: Should we bother, like, what do you have to prove for this if it should, you know, should we bothered going through that? I know it's a long shot.

0:16:08 MJ: I mean, yeah. I think that you have to say, right, someone made wrongful threats and then demanded money services or something of value that they had no legal right to. And I was was trying to explain civil extortion to my older son earlier. And I was like, it would be like, if he said to me, if I shovel the driveway, you buy me a car. I didn't say I'll buy him a car ever, right? He said, you Buy me a Car. So this isn't a good example. He was right. But I could say no, that doesn't mean he's extorting me for saying no, right. Like there has to be you can't just and I think here, you know, they're kind of saying like, she threatened to do these things.

0:16:14 Thomas: But Right.

0:16:46 MJ: She said she was going to do those things unless we gave her control of the movie. Yeah.

0:16:47 Lydia: There essentially has to be like a power imbalance that puts them in a position where they don't have the option of not complying.

0:16:56 MJ: And And that they, you know, they gave in and she had no right or she had no way to do that.

0:17:01 Thomas: So they do have to have given in. It can't be like she just threatened to do something.

0:17:06 MJ: Yeah. And to me, it's like, if they can resist the threats, then how were they extorted?

0:17:11 Thomas: Thing.

0:17:11 MJ: Right. Extortion kind of implies that you had no choice. And if you had a choice and you eventually decided to give in because it was easier to give him, to me that's a business decision, right? She didn't commit a crime, but she negotiated with you and eventually either you gave in or Sony gave in, or someone gave in, but that's not extortion. You made that decision. It's not a

0:17:33 Thomas: Yeah. That feels like every business transaction would be extortion, like driving a hard Bargain on a price or like, you know, like I feel like if this were extortion, like isn't like most of

0:17:40 MJ: Crime. You would think so, right? Completely. I really struggle to see how she extorted them, but more So I struggled to see how Reynolds or Sloan or Vision

0:17:53 Thomas: Business. Yeah, yeah, wait.

0:17:56 Lydia: Or yeah, a corporate entity extorted them. Yeah.

0:17:56 MJ: Like, what did, yeah, what, what are you talking about? Oh, I did hear that Leslie Sloane is in The Devil Wears Prada when Meryl Streep's character says, "Get Leslie." I heard that's based off of her, so I'm like, it's, are they just scared of Leslie Sloan and maybe they were so scared of her that they felt extorted? I don't know, but she didn't do

0:18:08 Lydia: Oh, yeah. Yeah,

0:18:11 Thomas: Really? Yeah. Well, this is a point I constantly made when we were breaking down, where they would make this big deal about like we were so, we're scared for our lives, we're, she was gonna kill us with a knife, she was stand and And then they'll be like, but we bravely resisted and we decided to go to the party. And so nothing happened. And it's like, oh, OK.

0:18:36 Thomas: So then there wasn't a threat like something. Something's not right with that.

0:18:36 Lydia: Well, but what do you mean? Paragraph 320, the Wayfarer parties were harmed. Yeah, yeah. It's clearly.

0:18:43 MJ: Anything

0:18:44 Thomas: Oh, OK, never mind. I take everything. Can I cut that? Can you edit that? Because I sound like an idiot now because it says the Wayfair parties were harmed. We have to. Sorry, MJ, to let you in behind the scenes. When I say something really stupid like that, we cut it out so that I don't appear incredibly dumb in front of the audience.

0:19:02 Thomas: So we're just, please don't tell anyone that I said that. Because now that I see that the Wayfair parties were harmed, like it's case over, like they win.

0:19:02 Lydia: Oh, yeah, case closed.

0:19:10 Thomas: Yeah.

0:19:06 MJ: So can you guys cut out my shoveling the driveway thing then? No, but this is the other thing is like, were you harmed? Because didn't your money, your movie make

0:19:15 Thomas: Yeah. Made a lot of money.

0:19:21 Lydia: Mm hmm.

0:19:21 MJ: Like more money than anyone anyone expected, including Sony.

0:19:25 Thomas: I was extorted into making good business decisions that I wouldn't have made otherwise.

0:19:25 Lydia: Yeah. I would have made bad business decisions and she stole that opportunity from me. Extortion. Yeah, yeah.

0:19:31 MJ: Yeah.

0:19:32 Thomas: Yeah. You're like crying about it. Yeah.

0:19:35 MJ: I would have made less money. Like I would have made last money. I wouldn't have been a creep when I was on TV talking about how I just, I can't understand that one. How were you harmed? She made your movie better and she did it for free. Like you weren't paying her for that work.

0:19:44 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. Yeah show me on the wallet where you were harmed.

0:19:53 Lydia: Yeah.

0:19:55 MJ: Please, please. Like, you kind of, this is one of those things that you kind of did this to yourself. The harm you caused, you could have been like, yeah, let's work together, Blake. Yeah, maybe this this cut sucks. Let's make it better. But you didn't do that.

0:20:06 Lydia: The

0:20:02 Thomas: Yeah. Well yeah, let's pretend, okay, just to entertain, you know, and to get a good idea of like the legal workings of this. I think everybody, and possibly I'm speaking for the non -lawyers here, I think people just sort of assume like, oh yeah, there was so much harm. I mean he was was so harmed. Look at like this article, blah, blah. But it's like, no, that's not what's at dispute here. Like the civil extortion isn't, well, and then the New York Times did an article on me.

It's like it would have to be harmed that's specifically tied to the thing that she made them do. Right. Which we can only I mean, I guess we're assuming because they don't tell us. So we have to fill in the blanks. Right? But we haveと assume that's like the taking over the film or whatever, the editing decisions, right? So, well, okay. Do I, am I correct up until that point before I go on? Yeah.

So if, if it has to be tied to that, which, which it does, what you can't, I can't even think of what that would be like. You can't just say the harm was, oh, people are mad at me because of a New York times article. And I think that's what a lot of non -lawyers do. They just think like, well he's been harmed. So that counts for everything. But it's like, no, you, you would have have to actually, yeah, yeah.

You would have to actually point to harm that was caused by Blake Lively's decision. Like, again, we're assuming, I think, unless somebody has better info on this, like what they mean here. But like, if it's tied to the quote unquote taking over their film, how did that harm you? And it has to be in monetary terms, right? Or is there, can they say that they were emotionally harmed? Oh, okay. That could be that. Yeah. Good luck.

0:20:55 MJ: Yeah. I don't think that they can under this cause of action. I think it has to be an economic harm.

0:21:14 Lydia: Common definition of the word, right? Yeah. A reputational damage maybe? Hmm, interesting. Hmm.

0:21:46 MJ: I do not think it can be a moral kind of injury or anything like that. So I think there, yeah, I do, you were not harmed. Like, I am sorry that you sat in a, whatever it is called, a green room at the premiere, but that is not economic damages.

0:21:54 Thomas: Yeah, yeah! I can't even to begin to imagine, you sort of see like why they didn't try to write a lawsuit. Because if you actually had to try to ride out the words of why you were harmed by that, it'd be like, well, the movie would have made $500 million if I was the edit of it. And it's like, okay. Yeah. Well, they ran out of words, so they used all of them.

0:22:05 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, and you can just tell, like, they're supposed to be leading with their most compelling cause of action. And they can't even muster the rhetoric that they've done the entire complaint. They've used the most ridiculous language ever, sentence after sentence. They need another thesaurus. And how lazy this is just reiterates again to me that they don't actually believe this, that this is solely for PR, that the things that they're saying as this top cause of action are not actually things that They Believe. That's my position anyway.

0:22:56 MJ: Agreed. No, I think you are right.

0:23:05 Ad: [Ad break 2 — ad music]

0:23:05 Lydia: I have a question, though, on paragraph 322. Before we move on from this one, this paragraph regarding civil extortion, "Upon information and belief, each of the Lively Parties was aware that the others planned to commit the tort of extortion against the Wayfarer Parties, and that each of The Lively Parties agreed with one another and intended that the wrongful acts pleaded herein be committed. Accordingly, each of the Lively Parties is equally liable to the Wayfair Parties for the tort of extortion by reason of their conspiracy to commit the tort."

0:23:08 Thomas: Oh.

0:23:18 Thomas: Wow, Jesus.

0:23:32 Thomas: How are you even coming close to justifying that, or to proving that?

0:23:35 MJ: Yeah, that's them just like a last-minute conclusory statement to try to tie Sloan, Reynolds, and Vision PR to that, because there's no other way, like, right there, there's nothing that they did. So they're saying, "Well, they all knew that they were doing it, so it was a conspiracy, so they can also" be liable for this. It's ridiculous, right? There's nothing, and you've gone through this whole complaint and there's something that's going on, and there is nothing to civil conspiracy. Nothing, right? You can, you can make the argument for some of the other causes of action, but when we get here, it's like, what are you guys, what do you even, why would you even try? Like, you would have been stronger to just go for Lively if you were going to include this, but that's entirely a conclusion, right? There's nothing there that could actually help.

0:23:42 Lydia: Oh, okay.

0:23:52 Thomas: Good luck, man.

0:23:54 Lydia: Interesting. Okay. Mm -hmm. Right.

0:24:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:24:23 Thomas: Yeah, I know we've said it before, but you have to do more than just say what the elements are. Like, if the element says, like, you have とhave been harmed, you can't just say, "Oh, we were harmed." Check that box. Check.

0:24:23 Lydia: Yeah. We were harmed.

0:24:34 MJ: Them, exactly.

0:24:34 Thomas: Yes, you have to actually say how you were.

0:24:36 Lydia: So lazy. All right. Second cause of action?

0:24:37 MJ: Yeah, that's

0:24:38 Thomas: All right. Well, I think, yeah. Do we take care of that one?

0:24:42 MJ: Silly, yeah, I think

0:24:44 Lydia: DOA is going to be my position on that one. Second case of action is defamation, and this is asserted against Lively, Reynolds, Sloan, Vision, and New York Times.

0:24:46 MJ: So I think you're right.

0:24:54 Lydia: So New York Times is coming to play for this one.

0:24:54 Thomas: Boy, that first cause of action makes this one look good by comparison.

0:25:00 Lydia: Yeah, it's Meteor, isn't it?

0:25:01 MJ: It

0:25:01 Thomas: Yeah. Even though we already covered. So is this substantially different than when we covered, you know, a million years ago, the New York Times lawsuit? Because it was very bad then.

0:25:02 MJ: Yeah, it kind of Does, I would say it's still not not great, right? We can read through them, but I think they very clearly don't make specific statements, right. It's a lot of, so, I mean, very simply, defamation. It sounds really simple, right? You said something false about me. It hurt me, you know, give me money, but it's not really that simple. They make very vague allegations here, but the complaint never tells us who said what, when they said it, and to whom they said, it's a Lot of lively said this to the times it it was false. But what did they say, right? What did Blake Lively say? The Lively parties made one or more statements to persons other than the Wayfair parties. What, that they failed to prevent sexually inappropriate conduct toward Lively and others. Don't we know that from the CRD complaint? Like, why is that a false statement? Is that a defamatory statement? I don't know. To me, looking at this, you're like, and also, sorry, I should go back.

This is against Lively, against Reynolds, Sloan, Vision, and New York Times. We have no idea what Sloan said and who who she said it to, what vision said and who they said it to and what Reynolds said, right? Where, where are there any allegations here that Reynolds did or said anything and to whom did he say it?

0:25:39 Lydia: I

0:26:14 Thomas: Yeah, Reynolds? Yeah, what? Yeah. Just for the record, just so I asked the question, You aren't just like guilty of something tort wise if your wife did it.

0:26:30 Lydia: Know,

0:26:32 MJ: Lydia, what are you doing?

0:26:33 Lydia: What have I done?

0:26:34 Thomas: Yeah. I'm just just checking. Yeah. Or vice versa. You know.

0:26:38 MJ: Oh, I mean, I just left a hockey rink in Buffalo. I'm not responsible for what my husband said to the referee, right like I'm, I'm just, I don't know. I don' t know. I'm. Not. He's not mine, but that doesn't make sense. And they kind of do the same thing. I think here, three 30 upon Upon information and belief, each of the lively parties was aware that the others planned to commit the tort of defamation against the Wayfarer parties.

0:26:59 MJ: They definitely spoke and were like, yeah, Vision was like, I'm going to go defame them.

0:26:59 Thomas: How did Vision PR do that? Yeah.

0:27:05 MJ: And I don't know how, but I'm doing it. I'm not going to.

0:27:08 Lydia: Because corporations are people, you guys, that's why. We figured that out.

0:27:10 MJ: No, that is true.

0:27:11 Thomas: Well, that's the least problematic part of it. Yeah.

0:27:15 MJ: But here, how do you defend this if you're Leslie Sloan? What did I say? Tell me what I said.

0:27:21 Thomas: Yeah. You have to do that to do this. Right. I mean, you have to actually do that.

0:27:24 MJ: You have to do that, right? You absolutely have to to do that.

0:27:29 Thomas: Your Honor, they know what they did.

0:27:33 MJ: Exactly. What are you talking about?

0:27:35 Thomas: Yeah, she knows. Yeah.

0:27:37 MJ: And what false statement? They're essentially arguing that that CRD complaint was false and defamatory and that the New York Times had it. It doesn't matter, right? The litigation, I mean, it doesn't mater. So they try, but again, alleging this against Just Lively would have made it feel more serious than everyone that they went after. And to me, it's just no. Yeah.

0:28:03 Thomas: And yeah, talk about the New York Times. Well, I mean, we've kind of already broken that down, but I mean that the litigation, there's like several ways that doesn't work against the New Year's. New York times. Right. Quite a few.

0:28:14 MJ: It's never going to work against the New York Times. It just doesn't work. I'm sorry.

0:28:16 Thomas: Yeah, well,

0:28:16 Lydia: I do have a question, though, like, because with Leslie Sloan, as you're saying, like how is she she going to defend against this? She's going to be, you know, like, "What did I say?" And if you're the lawyer for, or the legal team for the Wayfarer parties, you have to know that that's going to be the response then from Leslie Sloan. Is like, "Tell me what I said." Yeah.

0:28:35 Thomas: Yeah. I mean any lawyers that's, that's was to tack onto that question. Like I'm just confused. It's one thing to be like, oh, you're making up a bullshit lawsuit. Suit. It's another to do what seemed to be, I don't know if you'd classify it as a mistake, but something like this where it's like, it's not like that adds to the propaganda value to say vision PR. No one gives a shit about that. So is this just like bad lawyering? I mean, I know you're loathe to call out other lawyers, but like, just what the hell is this?

0:29:02 MJ: I don't, I really don't know. It might've been like a pressure point, a strategy to try to bring Leslie Sloan into the case because the Wayfarer, like those two, we've got Tag PR and the agency group and who's the other one? I don'T know. Jen Ables. So to me it might've just been like, you brought our people in, we're bringing your person in.

0:29:19 Lydia: Oh, it's uh

0:29:28 MJ: Let's go after Leslie Sloan. Let's see if we can make this stick. And they couldn't, right? And maybe they thought they'd get something in discovery. Maybe they thought, or maybe they thought they had something that, and they didn't, Right. We, I mean, we went through that whole, yeah, I would, you like, it is dumb. And in New York, like I have, I have a pending Defending anti -slap motion right now. I probably told you that months ago. I'm still waiting on the decision because it's really dumb to bring a defamation case if it's not a strong case, specifically in New York State. And I don't know why they did this,

0:29:27 Thomas: Oh, well, I guess, but

0:29:37 Lydia: Rwa. Yeah, right next to the Scott Swift texts.

0:29:40 Thomas: That's, I mean we can all agree that's dumb though, right? Like that's done. Right.

0:30:05 Lydia: And California is the same. Yeah, yeah.

0:30:08 Thomas: Yeah, it makes no sense. It could have been stronger. There's no it. That's why this just seems incompetent to me. I'm not the lawyer. You can take that for the nothing it's worth. But like, I don't think it's even worth trying to find strategy in something that just really seems like the wrong decision in every single way. Like, sure, you could find something in discovery. You also could have left it so that you could tack that on. I mean, if you have newly discovered things in discovery, don't you get to like, you know, amend and be like, "Hey, we've now, we've added them to the thing," you know, rather than weaken your complaint by making it just laughable. Like, it's just not even close, doesn't that? Wouldn't you be way more worried, especially with the defamation, like you're saying, wouldn't you be way more worried about just weakening your complaint so badly rather than like the added value of

0:30:08 Lydia: Yeah.

0:30:08 MJ: Right, at all.

0:30:57 Lydia: And

0:30:57 Thomas: Kind of scaring someone maybe? Yeah.

0:31:00 MJ: Yeah, I would. And I wouldn't bring a defamation claim unless I felt very strongly about it. And then I would be able to defend if someone came after me for bringing it. And I don't know how they do here with Sloan or Vision or the New York Times. I really don't.

0:31:12 Thomas: Yeah. Maybe, okay, fine, Blake Lively, fine, like, go ahead and do that, I guess, but the other ones is just, it's just ludicrous.

0:31:23 Lydia: Industries.

0:31:24 MJ: Yeah. I mean, I don't see it for Lively either. I think they know, right? This is, I'm reading all these books right now about how lawsuits are used to silence women. And so I'm very much like they knew exactly what they were doing when they brought this case against Lively, right. She spoke out against misconduct. They sue her for defamation. This is like a tried and tested strategy across multiple countries, right, like you see this when, Yes, and it's crazy. Crazy, and that is why, you know, the California law exists the way that it does, to protect women who speak out. And so it's all of this is no, and all of us is so fascinating to see, but then just, you're like, "Oh my gosh, I'm watching this happen." The only thing, you know, what she said was what was in her CRD, which, you know, you can pick it apart, I, I guess, but that is what she experienced on set, right?

0:31:27 Thomas: Sure, yeah.

0:31:48 Thomas: Yeah, and

0:31:50 Lydia: Yeah.

0:31:59 Thomas: It's still not enough. Yeah, it's

0:32:18 Lydia: Yeah, right.

0:32:18 MJ: So she's being sued for telling the truth of what she experienced on set. She was sued for defamation for that. And like, that should be a problem to, I don't care if you hate Blake Lively, but like to anyone who wants to speak up about misconduct in a workplace or anywhere, right. To then be sued for deformation is just like, I'm clenching my fist right now.

0:32:39 Lydia: Yeah

0:32:40 Thomas: Really infuriating. We just saw, I mean, not related at all to this, but I just saw the Alexander brothers.

0:32:46 Lydia: It is related.

0:32:46 Thomas: Well, it's kind of related. Yeah, I guess it is kind of related.

0:32:47 MJ: Oh, it is so related. I'm so infuriated by that.

0:32:50 Thomas: They had to drop some charges because witness intimidation. I mean, it really is. They just had to draw up some charges and they said like, it is funny because I saw the headline. It was New York Times, so I knew it was not like, you know, tabloid level, but I was like, oh, that is kind provocative. And then I saw that quotes within the New York times article is worse because it was like this, and again, this different case Maybe related, but different case, just to not confuse anyone, but we may cover it someday. But these horrible, horrible people, it was like, well, we have to drop these charges because the witness no longer is talking to her lawyer. She got threatened and they were pretending like a investigator in quotes was pretending to be like an insurance agent.

0:32:57 Lydia: Same PR team because she

0:33:37 MJ: Yeah.

0:33:37 Thomas: And once that happened, then the witness was spooked and never returned calls from her lawyer again.

0:33:41 Lydia: Can't trust anybody.

0:33:42 Thomas: And it's just like, yeah, OK, well, we haven't heard from her. She's not responding, you know, so we have to drop these charges. It's like, oh, cool. So you just get to get out of stuff by threatening and harassing women. And it'S like, yes, that is that is what you get to do.

0:33:57 MJ: And I think that, I mean, for me, We're at a time right now where most women I know are very angry, right? And you see that Alexander Brothers trial, I'm covering it. I can't even post about it because it's just devastating. And there isn't much press about it. And then you learn about the different PR teams that they've hired and the actions that their family's taking. And you're like, oh, so powerful men just still get away with it, right, and seeing that claim dropped. It's like, OK, I mean, hopefully they don't. And hopefully we have a strong New York jury in there. But I mean, reading the, he's an SDNY, he is always covering stuff in the Southern District. Yes, but reading his post, you're like, how could they possibly not be found guilty here?

0:34:02 Lydia: Yeah

0:34:02 Thomas: Yeah, we've

0:34:32 Lydia: Oh inner city press.

0:34:41 Thomas: Seen good things out of New York juries recently, you know, I will say, I don't know that it always applies, and you know, different courts and whatever, but technically speaking, but like, I feel like New Yorg juries have been pretty good, you know, we can hold out

0:34:45 Lydia: Yeah

0:34:46 MJ: Yeah, I agree. I said that to someone the other day and they were like, well, what about Diddy? And I'm like, uh, well I don't think that a New York jury is going to, I didn't mean to like deflate, you know, be the bad guy.

0:35:01 Thomas: Hope. Oh yeah, I forgot about that. No, no, that's what I want. Hey, I want to have realistic

0:35:09 Lydia: Yeah.

0:35:10 MJ: But to me, you know, I see on the Internet all the time, like, oh, a New York jury is going to hate Blake Lively. A New York juror is going to also hate Justin Baldoni and his whole persona and the whole everything like these people that don't live anywhere in New York with these these ideas about a New new york jury and I'm like can you just shut up excuse my language but like you have no idea like you Have no idea shut shut up the opinions about it are all laughable and oh privileged blake lively Blake Lively lives in New York like Blake Lively knows New York city better than any of the yeah any yes I mean god shut up

0:35:12 Thomas: Opinions. Yeah, yeah.

0:35:41 Lydia: She's a New Yorker basically yeah at this point.

0:35:47 MJ: She's gonna know how to be in front of that jury better than any of these guys and their lawyers from California. Sorry, we're so off topic.

0:35:53 Thomas: I think a good sign. No, no, I think it's a good thing to do, but I think people's actions are so obviously just what they think, you know, like I'm largely speaking on Blake Lively's side on this, but I recognize like, well, this could look bad for her. Maybe someone will think this, you Know, it's like, whereas there's other people who are like, they're all in for Justin Baldoni. And then they think everyone else is always going to be that too. And it's Like, oh, okay. So you're just wish casting.

0:36:03 Lydia: Using

0:36:04 MJ: Yeah.

0:36:20 Thomas: You're not really analyzing anything. It's just purely wish casting.

0:36:20 Lydia: A crystal ball, perhaps.

0:36:26 Thomas: Yeah. Did we, did you, uh, did you read this? I feel like, I think we might as well read these because for one, compared to what we just went through for months, like this is so short, but also it is so short and we might as well get, this is where all the law happens. This is the important stuff, right?

0:36:27 Lydia: Shade.

0:36:37 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Where do you want me to pick it up?

0:36:46 Thomas: Well, I think we, so yeah, just, just read it. I mean, we did a little bit of the three 25, but no, we didn't even read two. Did did we?

0:36:48 Lydia: On third cause of action? Oh, keep reading defamation. No, we just kind of talked about it in general, I guess. All right.

0:36:54 Thomas: No, just read. I don't know. Might as well. We've come this far.

0:36:56 Lydia: The lively parties made one or more statements to persons other than the Wayfair parties, including without limitation to the New York Times, to the effect that the the Wayfair parties engaged in permitted and or failed to prevent sexually inappropriate conduct toward Lively and others, and that the Wayfarer parties retaliated against Lively and others for reporting the alleged sexual misconduct, including by propagating false and misleading narratives about Lively for the purpose of damaging her image and reputation. That was one sentence. Ladies and gentlemen, I didn't breathe. There were some commas in there. Otherwise, it was one sense. They could have broken it up. That's all I'm going to say. That was a whole paragraph.

0:37:28 MJ: You read it very well. No.

0:37:35 Thomas: So is that enough specificity for us?

0:37:39 MJ: Like, what are we, what Are you talking about? What? I still don't know what you're talking about. What are the specific statements?

0:37:43 Thomas: The one or more language sounds like it's directly, it must be lifted from the elements. And it's like, no, but you have to say what those are.

0:37:51 Lydia: Webster's Dictionary.

0:37:52 Thomas: Yeah. Right. I mean, you can't just say, yeah, one or More. Yeah, again, check, checkbox, one more checkbox harm. Arm.

0:37:53 MJ: Yeah. What state? Like, if you wanted to do that, well, you would honestly potentially just say, like, the lively parties made the following statements to the person that they said it to and bullet point the statements that they said underneath, right? There you go. There are the defamatory statements that were made and they were made to the reporter at the New York Times or they were made to the New York Times. Even that would be fine. But I also think it's interesting. I'll let you keep reading. I'm sorry. I'll stop talking.

0:38:03 Lydia: Mm-hmm.

0:38:13 Thomas: Yeah.

0:38:25 Lydia: No, no, no. You're here for us.

0:38:26 MJ: I mean, I'm just

0:38:25 Thomas: No, no. Yeah, That's, we've, we keep making that point. And that's I'm glad because I always feel nervous again as a non-lawyer when it's like this Seems so dumb that I don't want to get too ahead of myself. But it's okay. You have to specificity, like you have to actually say what it was. You can't just say, you know, I said some stuff. They said some things.

0:38:44 MJ: I'm This is what I find really interesting about this cause of action is that they say the Lively parties made these statements to the New York Times, right? What statements did the New York Times make? Read through this, all of these

0:38:54 Thomas: Good point. Well, yeah, let's keep reading.

0:38:57 MJ: There's not one there. Is not one paragraph that says the New York Times made any defamatory statements that Just doesn't exist. It's not

0:38:59 Lydia: Yeah. All right.

0:39:04 Thomas: And yeah, That's a good point. Well, keep reading and we'll keep an eye out for that. Okay? From

0:39:10 Lydia: The persons to whom the lively parties made these statements reasonably understood that these statements were made about the Wayfarer parties. The statements made by the lively parties were intended to and did have the effect of exposing the Wayfarer parties to hatred, contempt, ridicule, or obloquy, or of causing them to be shunned or avoided, or of having a tendency to injury them in their occupations. Specifically, the persons to whom the Lively party's made the statements reasonably understood the statements to mean that the Wayfair parties engaged in permitted and or failed to prevent sexually inappropriate conduct toward Lively and others, and that the Wayfarer Party has retaliated against Lively and others for reporting the alleged sexual misconduct, including by propagating false and misleading narratives about Lively for the purpose of damaging her image and reputation. So copy and paste that general statement from the two preceding paragraphs. Yeah.

0:39:53 Thomas: The elements, or yeah, oh, okay.

0:39:54 MJ: Here, yeah. So they're just putting this general language in with the elements, right? They intended to, they wanted this to happen, but we still don't know what the statements are, and we still doesn't know if they were false, and we the Lively parties knew the statements were false. What statements? I don't, I still don' know what, what you're talking about. And yes,

0:40:09 Thomas: Yeah, yeah, they know, yeah.

0:40:11 Lydia: Well, here's the thing. They also are the ones that know the statements. They know which ones are false. They know it. They know It. And then they'll tell us which statements. I think

0:40:16 Thomas: This is just asking to be anti-SLAPPed.

0:40:26 MJ: This a hundred percent. Yeah.

0:40:28 Lydia: If I were, I'm not a lawyer obviously, but like, if I were a lawyer and I received this, I'd be like, oh, you guys are really weak. Like, this is pathetic. I'm gonna mop the floor with

0:40:36 Thomas: Right, yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying, like that whatever strategy thing you think it could be, I really think would be undermined by the fact that a real lawyer is going to look at this and be like, well, this is stupid. In fact, this would, this would in a real sense, this is almost writing a check to Blake Lively, like putting this in a complaint in an anti-slap state is kind of like saying, hey, I might owe you a bunch of money, right?

0:40:48 Lydia: You Yeah, oh gosh.

0:41:04 MJ: Yeah, I mean, especially when she knowing the California law, right, and the statements that she made and how they're protected under that. And Baldoni's lawyers are California lawyers. And I think that was a big miscalculation to file this, at least the defamation claim against her. Like, what are we doing? Why are we doing this? But also, I think there are different lawyers and different lawyers are doing things like Blake Lively's lawyers are never going to file a complaint like this, right? They're just not. And that's why I kept being like, oh, is there just a difference between New York and California lawyers? Like, do you guys write like this? I was asking friends in California, like, what, why is this like this. And they were like, no, this is Brian Friedman.

That is, that is what it, they were Like, this is Brian Friedman. And this is what he's known for. And he settles cases. I'm like, well, I don't know how that one's gonna settle a case. Because Because like we just said, I mean, Blake Lively has the A -team, right? She's not, they definitely saw this and were like, ooh, okay. We're going here? Well then, all right, we're ready. Let's go.

0:41:24 Thomas: Yeah.

0:41:41 Thomas: Boy, I don't think so. Friedman is just fucking nuts. God. Yeah.

0:41:44 Lydia: Yeah, yeah, they probably were all so offended. Yeah, that's the best you got? That's pathetic.

0:42:16 Thomas: Yeah, thinking you're going to drive a settlement with Blake Lively was an idiotic thing to think, like even setting everything else aside.

0:42:23 MJ: At that point, yeah, yeah.

0:42:25 Lydia: Pathetic.

0:42:25 Thomas: Yeah, it's just clear like this isn't like a corporation that just cares about its bottom line and is going to make a decision like, well, it's going to cost me this much to fight this and this much to settle or whatever. Like it's not, it's very clearly a personal thing here. Yeah.

0:42:37 Lydia: It's a woman with a voice who feels that she's been harmed in a serious

0:42:41 Thomas: With with a lot of money. Fortunately, someone who is deeply privileged and that's great because maybe she can actually not have to be bullied into submission.

0:42:49 MJ: Yeah, I think that's a good point. I mean this complaint made it worse, right. This probably made her dig her heels in more. Seeing this complaint and the timeline filed publicly. You know, not that they wouldn't have been pulled and posted. But, you know, we all know they made a website with this complaint on it that would have only probably made her more angry. Right. And more willing to go all the way with this.

0:42:55 Thomas: Yeah.

0:43:10 Thomas: Yeah. This is such a, like, like, I don't want to, you know, again, I'm not, I'm not like sympathetic with Baldoni, but like this is also such a, like, for him and them, an unfortunate, or maybe it's by design, confluence of people where it's like, you could have a client like Baldoni who is as deluded as he is and is, you know, and is kind of like gonna, way out there and wanting like, oh, we gotta go after him for all this stuff, and then ideally you would have a real lawyer who's like, all right, well, you can't really do that, like that's not gonna work, we can try something here. But, you know, a lawyer that's going to be kind of sensible. And yeah, that maybe they'd be a little aggressive, but they're not going to like go crazy. But you've got Brian Friedman, who is like worse. Like he's like it's almost it's Brian Friedman is like as if Baldoni was able to like his full just ego and narcissism was able to write a lawsuit.

0:44:02 MJ: Yeah.

0:44:05 Lydia: Way, yeah.

0:44:05 Thomas: You know, it's like the worst combination. That's my opinion anyway.

0:44:07 MJ: I mean, I know we're not, what, you're completely right. And I think that we try to steer people out of litigation because it's going to cost you money. I'm going to be the one making money on this, even if you win. You're spending on legal fees, like, unless it's, we really need to bring the claim, we're not going to, right? We're going to figure Out a different way to do it

0:44:26 Thomas: Well, and that's when you're talking about claims that are probably more sensible, right? So you're saying even when you have a claim against someone, it's like, all right, well, lawsuit's kind of like maybe the last resort. That's if you have claim, right.

0:44:40 MJ: Yeah. I mean, in the plaintiff employment world, it's like sometimes you just have to file, right? But if you are a business and you're fighting over a breach of contract and the contract is worth forty thousand dollars, it's, right, let's be realistic here and try to get settled for X amount because you're going To spend as much On litigating, and it's going to be, you're going to hate me by the end. You know what I mean? Like, why are we doing this?

0:44:57 Lydia: Yeah, I

0:44:44 Thomas: Sure. Yeah. Well, in my point is take that very sound advice and apply it. If someone's like, I want to sue him for being aliens. You're like, um, no.

0:45:08 MJ: Yeah, we're not doing that. Well, here we know that they could have just said, sorry, they could have released a statement in August and it's over. Right? Maybe there's some back and forth. You don't hire crisis PR, you don't have someone get Brian, say get Brian he'll destroy or he'll bury Blake Lively. This was a perfect storm of crisis PR Brian Friedman, Justin Baldoni and money, right? They have financial backing.

0:45:11 Lydia: And

0:45:16 Thomas: Yeah. Yep.

0:45:29 Thomas: Yeah, yep, yep. Yeah oh yeah, what's his name? Sarowitz, yeah. Gosh, so avoidable, so voidable. Yeah let me just cash my 350 million dollar check or whatever essentially.

0:45:33 Lydia: Money. Sarowitz, yeah. Yeah.

0:45:37 MJ: And here we are, and it's like, all of this could have been avoided if we didn't, if we just were like, oh, the movie is great, and let's Yeah, sorry we didn't pose together on the red carpet, like filming was a little bit bad, whatever the statement was. Release the statement, suck up your pride, sorry. We wouldn't know, none of us would know that, like, these people kind of suck. We just would have been like, oh, that was a weird, no one would have even cared three months later.

0:45:51 Lydia: No.

0:46:06 Thomas: Yeah no, they really wouldn't have.

0:46:11 Lydia: No, they wouldn't have.

0:46:11 MJ: Right, about any of it, if you didn't hire crisis PR, if you didn't do these things

0:46:16 Thomas: Even some of the worst Me Too, two examples are Fine now. Like even some of the worst. So let alone if you had been like, ah, our bad, be like, oh, well done

0:46:20 Lydia: Oh yeah. Louis CK on his rehabilitation Tour, like nothing actually happened. Oh, I know. Yeah.

0:46:26 MJ: Oh my god, I know.

0:46:27 Thomas: Yeah, well, that, he's like, he's several tours after

0:46:31 Lydia: I I, I mentioned, you know, like when, if you're the lawyer on the receiving end of something like this, like what this tells you, but like, I think if they also had clients that weren't narcissists that were able to actually like evaluate what they're seeing, if I were the client, I'd be kind of annoyed by this because I'm like, I'm paying you so much money and you literally just put a dictionary definition in the complaint. Like, where's the argument? There's no argument here. That's what I'm paying you for. This is weak sauce, and fix it. But they don't.

0:46:32 MJ: But yeah You're completely right, but also as a lawyer sometimes, like, uh, you said if someone comes in, it's like, I want to sue them because they're aliens, you have to be like, well, no, we can't do

0:47:15 Thomas: That Yeah, take that to intergalactic court. That doesn't work here, right?

0:47:17 MJ: That, yeah. Or like, I'm not, I'm not taking this case. And what we do if something's really bad is, I'll be like, okay, I need this much as a retainer. And it's a ridiculous amount, right? Because I'm like, I'm not making you mad, and I'm not doing this.

0:47:28 Lydia: Yeah. And the client self-selects out, yeah.

0:47:33 MJ: Yep, here you go. Here's some other people you can go talk to who might bring a crazy claim like that, right? And yeah, go call him, right. I'm not doing that. And that's kind of your ethical duty. But it also is not to just say, here's a high retainer event. If someone's like, I'll pay it. You're like, no, we're not doing this. But to me, also, you have to know that if If you're going to file a defamation claim, your lawyer should warn you that you might get hit with fees and punitive damages for doing so based on the jurisdiction.

0:47:33 Thomas: Yeah. Yeah, here's Brian Friedman's Card. Yeah, yeah.

0:48:04 Thomas: No, but I've said, due to our experience You know, and I even previously of that, I mean, just being in somewhat in some sort of media, like, I know people who've gotten sued, who've been tried to be silenced, and so I'm familiar with anti-slap just even before having any experience with the legal system, and it's like, that would be the first thing I would think is like, wait, am I opening myself up to something here? And they did in a big way.

0:48:07 Lydia: Right.

0:48:33 Ad: [Ad break 3 — ad music]

0:48:34 Thomas: So did you finish reading through this? Cause, cause,

0:48:36 Lydia: No. The statements made by the lively parties about the Wayfair parties were false. Furthermore, the lively bodies knew the statements were false or had serious doubts about the truth of the statements. Again, this is just, it's the textbook definition of, yeah, and that their Their false statements to third parties were a substantial factor in causing harm to the Wayfair Party's property, business, trade, profession, and or occupation. Expenses the Wayfarer Parties had to pay as a result of the defamatory statements, harm to The Wayfaire Party's reputations, and, with respect to Baldoni and Heath, shame, mortification, and hurt feelings.

0:48:38 Thomas: Yeah, you're just saying the elements without saying what they are.

0:49:08 Thomas: Mortification, wow.

0:49:10 MJ: Sorry, I had to cover my laughter.

0:49:12 Lydia: And then we have here another conspiracy to tie them all together to this cause. Because, upon information and belief, each of the lively parties was aware that the others planned to commit the tort of defamation against the Wayfarer parties, and that each of the Lively parties agreed with one another and intended that the wrongful acts pleaded herein be committed. The tort of defamation by reason of their conspiracy to commit the tort.

0:49:17 Thomas: Ooh, so ridiculous. So like you said, excellent point. Nowhere is New York Times even in this.

0:49:37 Thomas: You can't be sued for defamation just because someone told something to you. That doesn't make sense. That's all that's alleged in here.

0:49:37 Lydia: Yeah, It's not like a stolen property. Like, you didn't receive stolen property, and now you're going to be held accountable.

0:49:45 Thomas: Yeah, yeah. These statements were hot.

0:49:50 MJ: Yeah, it's just silly. It's all silly.

0:49:53 Thomas: All right, well, that one's stupid. Let's go on to three. Hmm.

0:49:56 Lydia: Alright, third cause of action is the false light invasion of privacy. We see this paired together in the other suits that we've covered, right, where it's, you try for defamation, and then this is kind of the step down from that, right? I think is what we talked about before.

0:50:05 MJ: Yeah, So this doesn't exist in New York. And I think I told you before, it was a trick on our law school exam. What are the cause of action of false light invasion of privacy? Or what are the elements? None, because it doesn't exist here.

0:50:13 Thomas: Right. Elements. Right? That's right.

0:50:23 MJ: But yeah, I'd say it's like defamation's kind of cousin, right? But it has to meet the same legal requirements. You can't fail on defamation and then try to go for false light. And they don't do a good job here at all. It's based on the same text messages from the CRD complaint. They have the same vague allegations throughout here. And I just think it's, again, what disclosures, right? 334 is like the false light created by the disclosures of the lively parties. Well, what ones? That's just not there. You can't just kind of describe vaguely what happened and then get away with that.

0:51:00 Thomas: Hmm.

0:51:00 Lydia: So in 333, I guess they like narrow it down a little bit. And this is just to be clear, this cause of action is made by Baldoni, Heath, Nathan, Abel, and Sarowitz. And then it is against Lively, Reynolds, Sloan, Vision, and the New York Times. And in paragraph 333. It says that the lively parties publicly publicly disclosed information or material regarding the Wayfarer parties, as I named previously, professional decisions, moral character, private life, and family, which showed them in a false light, which are, those are probably just like general categories that you would see in the elements of this anyway, or maybe they're saying specifically those are the categories that we believe those statements are under. I don't know.

0:51:18 MJ: I think that the false light has to be it's one of those like weird legal standards, highly offensive, highly defensive, reasonable person, maybe.

0:51:42 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Who told us about this? Was that you? Someone talked about like the highly offensive was like an insanely high thing.

0:51:55 MJ: Oh, yeah, that was for intentional infliction of emotional distress.

0:51:58 Thomas: Oh. Okay. Gotcha.

0:51:58 MJ: But it's very similar, right? It has to be like, it's probably like wanton disregard or reckless disregard for how that individual would be seen in public or portrayed in public, and that's why they're using like moral character, private life, and family, but they're, again, not saying what those things were, right? We don't, we still don't know what those statements were or what was shared, right? Like defamation, you have to say what it was, and we don't know what it is. We just know that apparently, yeah.

0:52:29 Thomas: Foiled again. Darn.

0:52:31 MJ: I mean, this one to try to go after the New York Times for this is just absolutely ridiculous, because the New York Times is very clearly in New York and was only in Newark. And again, New York does not recognize this tort.

0:52:32 Thomas: They're going to keep failing this test. Oh, Wow. Oof. All

0:52:47 Lydia: Continuing on in the narrative here, the false light created by the disclosures of the lively Lively parties would be highly offensive and objectionable to a reasonable person in the Wayfair Party's position in that it made Baldoni, Heath, Nathan, Abel, and Sarowitz the objects of scorn, pity, ridicule, humiliation, and other suffering. These lively parties knew the public disclosures would

0:52:50 Thomas: Right. If we were able to even say what it was. These Lively parties, I tell

0:53:10 Lydia: Create a false impression about Baldoni Heath, Ethan Abel and Sarowitz or acted with reckless disregard for the truth. As A direct and proximate result of the said publicity and false and misleading disclosures, Baldoni, Heath, Nathan, Abel, and Sarowitz sustained harm, including to their business and professions, as well as their reputations. Further, Baldoni Heath, Nath and Abel and Sarwitz have suffered and continue to suffer from grief and anxiety as a result of the wanton destruction of their public reputitions and characters. As a further direct and proxmate result of this said disclosure, the Wayfair Party's Baldoni Heath, Nathan Abel and Sarwitz, have suffered loss of income and interference with future income. How did they lose loss of? I mean, I could see the interference with future income.

0:53:18 Thomas: You.

0:53:52 Lydia: What would be the loss of income to any of those parties as of right now?

0:53:56 MJ: I don't know. I really don't know.

0:53:58 Lydia: It's not like they were receiving paychecks from Lively or Leslie Sloan or.

0:54:02 Thomas: Did anybody cancel? I'm... they'd have to. Typically it'd be like pointing to like canceled contracts or, right? I mean, or something like, oh well, I mean, he, he got... did he have that award rescinded? I guess he could point to that maybe.

0:54:14 Lydia: Yeah, but that wasn't income.

0:54:15 MJ: He did.

0:54:16 Thomas: You know.

0:54:17 MJ: Yeah, he did have that rescinded. And maybe he's not directing. Wasn't he supposed to direct like Pac -Man or something? Is that real? Am I making that up?

0:54:23 Thomas: Yeah. No, that's real. That's absolutely real. I'm remembering the bunch of texts about like, yes, Pac -Man or whatever.

0:54:25 Lydia: No, it's real.

0:54:26 MJ: I don' t know. I'm like, yeah, but like, what income did he lose? And it's all just, it's all grouped together the whole time.

0:54:31 Lydia: It's real, yeah.

0:54:37 Thomas: Yeah, and that's bad.

0:54:40 MJ: It is. You can't, you can't do that.

0:54:41 Thomas: Bad lawyering.

0:54:43 MJ: You need to say specifically what damages they had. Right. And I think that that will probably be a problem for them.

0:54:49 Thomas: Yeah, because like you said before, setting aside the celebrity aspect and the privilege, if you or I just got sued for something like this, like you were saying before, how do I respond to this? What did I say or do? What are you talking about? You didn't even tell me. I don't even know know what I'm alleged to have done

0:55:07 Lydia: I can't even make it right if you don't tell me like what the issue is.

0:55:08 Thomas: Which is a critical part, yeah, of the, of how the law works, right? I gotta be on notice.

0:55:12 MJ: Yeah. And that you would be able to get that dismissed, right? You can't, just, you can't plead like that. It just doesn't work. People say all the time that Justin Baldoni should sue me. Like, like for what? Like Let's go, yeah.

0:55:24 Lydia: Wow.

0:55:25 Thomas: Oh, so you like, they just say, "Oh yeah, yeah."

0:55:27 MJ: For defamation, I'm like, I don't actually even say bad things about him. You guys are nuts. Yeah.

0:55:32 Thomas: Yeah, I've had idiots on Reddit be like, "Well, add it to the list." You're on the list of people. It's, I forget who it was, Sarawitz, or it was, it might have been Friedman, actually. Friedman's gonna sue. And it was just a comment about like, how, you know, they're doing badly at the lawsuit. It wasn't even Like, it's like you can't just sue anyone for any, I mean, you kind of can, but you can, it's not a good idea.

0:55:50 Lydia: Yeah. Yeah.

0:55:50 MJ: Yeah. No, well, we're on the same list then, so There you go. No, this is, this is silly. I think this maybe when we did the first complaint, this maybe we did that together and this was Yeah, I'm like, this is still like, this is probably the most, i'mike just stop. Not, not worth

0:55:58 Thomas: Yeah. I think these are the same ones. Yeah, yeah.

0:56:14 Lydia: The conduct of the lively parties described herein was a substantial factor in causing the Wayfair Party's Baldoni, Heath, Nathan, Abel, and Sarowitz's harm, constituted a serious invasion of their rights to privacy, and was an egregious breach of social norms that shocks the conscience.

0:56:27 Thomas: All right, uh, no.

0:56:29 MJ: It There's that language they need Right, uh, to say how bad it

0:56:31 Thomas: Yeah.

0:56:31 Lydia: Yeah. And then we have the conspiracy element here, paragraph 338, that they're all working against each other.

0:56:35 Thomas: Again, They all knew each other was gonna, whatever. Yeah, all right, so pretty standard. All right, was that, that was

0:56:42 Lydia: And yeah, yeah. Yes, that was the third cause of action.

0:56:47 Thomas: The third, okay.

0:56:48 Lydia: Fourth cause of action is specific to Blake Lively against Blake Lightly. This is breach of implied covenant of good faith and fair dealing.

0:56:51 Thomas: Oh, okay, well, that's Refreshing. Okay, I feel like we've seen this before, maybe in the Jones stuff or something.

0:57:00 Lydia: Yeah, I think that's

0:57:00 MJ: Was Yeah, I think it was in there. Yeah, it's basically like, you'll play fair, right? You won't do anything to kind of undermine the other person's ability to get what the contract promised them.

0:57:06 Thomas: Prima facie, the closest thing to plausible I've heard yet.

0:57:15 MJ: They kind of played it a little bit better than they did the rest of the things that we've gone through, but again, we don't, you know, we have the repeat and reallege everything, and then we have Lively Lively and the Wayfair parties entered into a contract by which Lively agreed to perform as an actor in the film. Wayfaire parties did all or substantially all of the things the contract required them to do. I'm jumping ahead, but what did the contract say that she had to do, right?

0:57:39 Lydia: Right.

0:57:39 MJ: It's not enough. They're not specific enough. We don't know the terms of the contract.

0:57:45 Thomas: For all their exhibits, they didn't attach the contract, did they?

0:57:48 MJ: Oh, I mean, you don't. I would not file a breach of contract or breach of implied covenant without attaching the contract, but I mean if I did, I would plead that contract in there and I would would say who signed it. Like, I don't even know who the, what Wayfair party signed it, and I don' know who signed on behalf of Lively based on how this is pled.

0:58:00 Thomas: Yeah. Wow. Boy.

0:58:08 MJ: I don''t know the terms. I don't know the contractual provision, right, that she kind of frustrated. And I think based on listening to you guys, we know that they talk multiple times about how she didn't sign the agreement. So did the contract actually exist? What are the terms of the contract? Did the person and actually sign it, or like suing someone for maybe a promise? We don't know if this was actually here. Show me the contract. Oh.

0:58:27 Thomas: Yeah. Right. And I do think that like that could, if somebody strung you along by not signing a contract, that could be this, right? Where it's like a breach of, instead of breach of contract. It's a breach of implied covenant of good faith or fair dealing. So that could make sense in a scenario sort of like what they've said, right? Or does this one have to be a contract?

0:58:51 MJ: Completely no, it totally could, but they need to show that there was a contractual kind of obligation And that she interfered with them being able to do it, or she didn't cooperate. And again, like, what term specifically? One, what contract? But two, specifically, how did she interfere with that? Like, what was the contractual provision that Blake made difficult for you?

0:58:58 Thomas: Oh, right.

0:59:14 Thomas: Wait, yeah. I'm sorry if this is dumb or technical, but breach of applied covenant of good faith and fair dealing, can that happen with a contract or without a contract, or is that one of the ones you do when you didn't have a contract.

0:59:28 MJ: I think that they're, they're alleging it based on the contract. They're saying that they did have a contract.

0:59:33 Thomas: Right. But I mean, since they've done everything everything wrong. I'm just making sure. Cause like, what is it when it's just breach of contract? Is it this, or would you sue for a breach of the contract? Okay. Okay. Gotcha.

0:59:42 MJ: You could, you could probably add this one into, you'd sue for breach of contract, but you'd say this too, that they made it impossible for you to perform or they made it, you know, you didn't play fair.

0:59:51 Thomas: Okay, fair enough. Gotcha.

0:59:54 MJ: You didn't do what the contract said. You'd do both.

0:59:55 Lydia: It's honestly, it's obviously almost like they don't even know what the contract says, because like, when I go to how vague in general this stuff is, right? The Wayfarer parties did all or substantially all of the significant things that the contract required them to do, or in the alternative the Wayfare parties were excused from having to do those things. All of the conditions required, if any, for Lively's performance had occurred or in the alternative were excused. It's like just so vague that I'm like, have you guys not seen the contract either?

1:00:23 Thomas: Okay.

1:00:23 Lydia: Like, what's happening here?

1:00:24 MJ: And maybe that's what happened, right? I don't know, but they didn't, they, what, what happened in that contract, plead the details of this contract Please make us understand what's going on here. Like, what did she do?

1:00:33 Lydia: They tried. They attempt

1:00:38 Thomas: We can keep, keep reading.

1:00:38 Lydia: This at paragraph 344. Lively engaged in conduct that prevented the Wayfarer parties from receiving the benefits contemplated under the contract. Specifically, Lively interfered with the production by making repeated threats and demands in order to seize creative control over the production, editing, and marketing of the film, such that the lively parties were deprived of the opportunity to produce, edit, I think they mean that the Wayfair parties were deprived of the opportunity to produced, edit and market a film as contemplated by the contract.

1:00:42 MJ: Um

1:01:00 Thomas: Wait. Yeah. They mean them. Yeah, wait a minute. Wait a minute, that wouldn't be their contract with her. Would it? Wouldn't that mean, like, it seems like they're trying to say breach of contact because we weren't able to do the things that, that were in our contract with Sony, right?

1:01:12 Lydia: That's true.

1:01:19 MJ: No.

1:01:19 Thomas: I mean, would they have had a contract with Blake Lively to produce, edit, and market the film?

1:01:23 MJ: They would.

1:01:23 Lydia: Well, they specifically and they specifically say that she entered into the contract as an actor also.

1:01:24 Thomas: It doesn't make sense.

1:01:29 MJ: Not, yeah, so this, this is about her contract, but I don't know, um

1:01:30 Thomas: Yeah, It seems like it's just wrong, right? I mean, you can't, how did she interfere? So interfered with production, I get, are you, like would it, again, this is why you would want to show us the contract. Is there something in her contract that would be like, we agree that, you know, everyone will be cool here so that we can edit our film? Is that something that would be in the contract with her? It doesn't make any sense.

1:01:58 MJ: No, I don't think so, and she might have rights to see certain things, or she might have certain contractual rights about maybe I don' t know, looking at stuff or approving them. I don't actually know, but I think that's the problem with this, is like, show us the contract. Where it said that she couldn't do that, or where it's said that you had the, yeah, that you did do it

1:02:11 Thomas: Right. Yeah. Well,

1:02:15 Lydia: So like, retain sole control over that or something. Yeah.

1:02:22 Thomas: Yeah, so, so yeah, just to be clear, so we're right here, we're saying the Wayfairy parties, they're trying to say that they weren't able to receive the benefits contemplated under the contract, which has to be the contract with her. So Having not seen it at this point, I have to imagine that a contract with an actress is going to be, or an actor is just going to, to be like, you're going to get the benefit of their performance. And maybe, maybe there'd be stuff about like, yeah, maybe There'd be stuff about them. I don't know, marketing it, or maybe there'd Be stuff like that. I Don't really think you're gonna have a contract with each of your performers, each of Your actors, that's like, hey, I get to edit this film, or Something, you know, like, I don't, it doesn't make any sense. It's like they're talking about breach of Lively's contract, and the harm is that it stopped them from being able to do something that I would think would be in the Sony contract, but that's not, that doesn't make any sense. It's like a mismatch, right? One

1:02:34 MJ: Yeah.

1:02:45 Lydia: In exchange for money.

1:02:59 Lydia: Yeah, Yeah.

1:03:13 MJ: Yeah, it doesn't make any sense, and I think that's the problem with this claim, is like, what, show us, show us exactly what the contract said. Show us the terms. Yeah, show us. And who signed it, I don't know, who's like, not even who signed it, but I don't even know who the parties are to this. We don't have those details, which you would expect to have when you're pleading this type of cause of action. And you would typically see a breach

1:03:19 Thomas: Of the many problems with this, yeah, it's funny Yeah.

1:03:37 MJ: Of contract included there with that.

1:03:38 Lydia: And then in general, the Wayfair parties were harmed by Lively's conduct.

1:03:38 Thomas: Terrible. Once again, cut everything, I

1:03:54 Ad: [Ad break 4 — ad music]

1:03:55 Lydia: On to our fifth cause of action. And this is against Reynolds and Lively. Intentional interference with contractual relations.

1:04:01 Thomas: Said, "Okay, so this might make more sense for the thing I just said, maybe, we'll see."

1:04:03 Lydia: So this is about the contract between the Wayfaire parties and their agency, William Morris Endeavor. And they state in here that the Lively parties, Lively and Reynolds, why are they doing this? The Lively Lively parties Lively and Reynolds knew of the contract. Just say the Lively Parties. You've already defined it.

1:04:11 Thomas: Oh, okay. So never mind. Yeah, don't define it as something and then use it differently a million times.

1:04:27 Lydia: Yeah, silly. The Lively Party's Lively and Reynolds prevented performance of the contract or made performance more expensive or difficult. Specifically, upon information belief, Lively and Reynolds made threats and or demands to induce WME to cease performing under its contract with the Wayfair parties. The Lively Party's Lively and Reynolds intended to disrupt the performance of this contract or in the alternative knew that disruption of performance was certain or substantially certain to occur. The Wayfair parties were harmed.

1:04:34 Thomas: Yeah.

1:04:35 MJ: Yeah,

1:04:54 Thomas: Okay, this feels like maybe the closest thing to a claim that might make sense, but tell me if I'm wrong. I mean, if you're going to allege, hey, they said, and you get to kind of do this, right? On information belief, they sad, hey, William Morris Endeavor, you got to dump this loser who's a sexual predator or whatever. If they're alleging that, then I guess this at least makes sense, right.

1:05:17 MJ: I'd say it kind of makes sense, but they need to do more than just that, right? Like, they are kind of throwing the elements out there, right? We need to know a valid contract existed. I honestly think they control EFT and replace some things, and that's why it says the Lively Parties, Lively in Reynolds, the way that it does, because it's so it that just doesn't read normally at all, like, yeah.

1:05:22 Thomas: Oh, God, it's so bad. This is the amended guys. This they had a month to look over the thing they already did essentially and corrected.

1:05:46 MJ: I mean, but so yes, the defendants knew about it, they intentionally tried to disrupt it, the contract was disrupt disrupted, and you got hurt. So we'd need to have all of those things, and here we still again have the same problem that we had last time. What are the details of that contract? Uh, what were the terms of that contract? Did WME do something specifically in response to these statements?

1:06:11 Thomas: Yeah.

1:06:11 MJ: It just, it's still really vague. It was disrupted, Wayfarer was harmed. They're just kind of repeating the cause of action back to

1:06:20 Thomas: Yeah, do you have any experience with this one? Because I would, I'd be curious, because I think it would be interesting to think about just as a layperson, there's got to be some line here, because if it's like, let's say some agent I just see at a bar and like, we're friends and he's like, hey, I represent, you know, such and such, Justin Baldoni, and I'm like, that guy's a creep, and then that agent is like, hmm, and then looks into it, is like, oh, maybe we don't want to work with this guy, like with that, it would feel, I feel rough if I were on the hook for something just because of, like, a kind of a casual comment, versus, I guess, in theory, like the thing that this is for that I think makes sense is, like, literally stealing business maybe from somebody or lying to say, like, that person, you know, they actually, you know, and then, like, they cancel the contract and it was just a lie. Do you have experience in what are the lines there? What actually constitutes something like that?

1:06:33 MJ: Us.

1:07:12 MJ: Yeah, that, you're exactly, I mean, spot on with the experience that we've had. It's all with non-compete claims, and I think this might be a cause of action in the, in the Jonesworks case, where a former employee or a business partner or someone leaves, they know that, you know, it'd be like, I know that Sony has a contract with, that's a terrible example because I don't know who Sony contracts with, but a cleaning company, and I want that contract. So I go after, I'm a cleaning company. I want to work with Sony. I know exactly what the terms of the contract are. I know what the contract is. And I go call Sony and say, you know, I'll do this for you for a dollar less than they do. And I get, I get that business. That's where you would typically see a claim like this. Not where you're just like, not where you're destroying someone else's contract. They're

1:07:58 Thomas: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, because this isn't tortious interference. No, intentional interference with contractual relations. What's the thing I was saying? Is that the tortious inference thing?

1:08:10 MJ: Very, very similar, but yeah, to me it's like, I'd say this one is close. It's closer, right, than the other ones, if

1:08:11 Thomas: OK. You might put this cause of action on the fridge if your kid. Hey, close, buddy. You're almost doing law stuff.

1:08:25 Lydia: They

1:08:25 MJ: They had, if they said specifically what they allegedly said to WME, and that they said, if there was a very clear line between Reynolds saying you have to drop him or demanding him to drop him, and that actually caused WME to drop them, maybe there's something there. But we, we still need to know about this contract. Like was this an oral contract? Was this a written contract? I still don't know. Plead more about the contract.

1:08:49 Thomas: And that's not hard to do. That's why I just think this is so incompetent, because like I believe that they had a contract. You know, it's not like it's not like this is some fabrication like, oh, then they he wasn't even working with them. It's like, no, they just didn't do the basic law things you need to do. Am I wrong?

1:09:01 MJ: Yeah, you're not wrong at all. That is spot on what should happen here. And I agree with you. I think that he did have a contract with them. This could have been pled better. And And I don't know why we didn't do that.

1:09:22 Thomas: Weird.

1:09:21 Lydia: Do pair it with the sixth cause of action. So this is against Reynolds and Lively as well. And this is regarding intentional interference with prospective economic advantage. So they state in paragraph 357, the Wayfaire parties and WME were in an economic relationship That probably would have resulted in an economic benefit to the Wayfair parties and that the Lively parties, Lively and Reynolds knew of the relationship. The Lively parties Lively and Reynolds I'm going to say it every time engaged in wrongful conduct specifically by making threats and or demands. That's not specific. You guys that WME terminate saying

1:09:26 Thomas: OK. Hmm. Hmm.

1:09:59 Thomas: Specifically by saying some things.

1:10:01 Lydia: Some things that are, yeah, this general vague statement that WME terminate its economic relationship with the Wayfair parties by engaging in this conduct. The Lively parties intended to disrupt the relationship, or in the alternative, knew that disruption of the relationship was certain or substantially certain to occur. The relationship was disrupted. The Wayfarer parties were harmed. The Lively party's conduct was a substantial factor in causing the Wayfare parties harm. And then we get that conspiracy language following that, and then the messiest paragraph, 365, lowercase the the And then capital Lively parties, Lively and Reynolds.

1:10:34 Thomas: Oh, my God. Wow.

1:10:37 Lydia: Nonsense.

1:10:39 Thomas: So low effort.

1:10:40 Lydia: So, I mean, these are just like slightly different. This is like more about the benefits that they would have received as being part of this contract that Lively and Reynolds allegedly interfered with and not just the loss of the contract itself. Is that right?

1:10:40 MJ: Yeah, yes, it's very, very similar. But like, yeah, instead of an existing contract of a future relationship that might have made them money, kind of protecting a deal that may have happened. However, I mean, this has all the same problems as the one before it. We don't have the specifics about the relationship, the disruption. And for this cause of action, the defendant's conduct has to be independently wrongful.

1:11:05 Lydia: Mm hmm.

1:11:18 Thomas: Hmm. Right.

1:11:18 MJ: So that would mean here, like, if his statements were also defamatory. Yeah.

1:11:19 Lydia: Mm

1:11:24 Thomas: Kind of like I was saying with like, yeah, he's a pedophile or something.

1:11:27 Lydia: Hmm,

1:11:28 MJ: Exactly, that's also independently wrongful, but if that defamation claim falls then there's no independently wrongful act, and so this claim collapses, and here they don't plead that well at

1:11:36 Lydia: Hmm. Interesting.

1:11:42 Thomas: Well, Not good. That's not going on the fridge, so far we've got maybe one thing on the fridge, but maybe even not.

1:11:44 Lydia: All right. So seventh cause of action, negligent interference with prospective economic advantage. So again, we're talking about Lively and Reynolds and their alleged interference with the Wayfair Party's relationship with WME. So here we have, again, the economic relationship. Oh, so this is the exact same thing. So it's intentional versus negligent, right?

1:11:50 MJ: All Yeah. The really dumb thing about this is that you need to owe a duty in order to have a negligence claim, and Reynolds does not owe Baldoni any duty. They're not in a special relationship. He's the husband, right, of a co -star that hates him. Yeah, so he that there's no legal duty.

1:12:13 Thomas: That Oh, Okay. Oh, right. Yeah.

1:12:19 Lydia: Yeah. Baldoni wishes. Yeah.

1:12:28 MJ: There maybe against Lively, maybe, but you still need everything that you had in number six, and they didn't have it, so That one's gone.

1:12:28 Thomas: Oh my god. Dog shit.

1:12:34 Lydia: Yeah, This one, yeah, specifically talks about acting with reasonable care and that they failed to act with reasonable care, so

1:12:39 MJ: Oh my god, yeah. This one

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1:12:53 Lydia: Then eighth cause of action we've already talked about, because, yeah, so this is the New York Times one that we talked about already. They just basically copy-pasted this over. Ninth cause of action is the same thing, breach of implied-in-fact contract against the New York

1:12:54 Thomas: Oh, the promissory fraud. Yeah, so Dumb. The email. Yeah. Okay. We don't have to do that. Yeah, yeah, that's it. Oh boy, they don't have a prayer for this relief.

1:13:05 Lydia: Times Company, and there you have it, and then now we get our prayer for relief now I don't remember if we called this out, for their prayer for belief, monetarily, they are wanting nothing less than 400 million dollars.

1:13:13 MJ: Sucks, they

1:13:22 Thomas: 400 million dollars?

1:13:24 Lydia: You guys. Yeah.

1:13:20 MJ: Don't Yep, because Because that

1:13:26 Thomas: More than the movie made.

1:13:29 Lydia: A

1:13:29 MJ: Is a great headline, right? That's such a good headline. Justin Baldoni sues Blake Lively for $400 million.

1:13:36 Thomas: I don't know, is it? I think it's a, a bad headline.

1:13:38 MJ: It is if you want to be like, wow, look at him. He has really strong claims. He has $400 billion. It probably played really well in January.

1:13:44 Thomas: Right. I guess. It just seems dumb. I guess it depends on who your audience is, because it just seems like anyone who knew anything would be like, oh, that's too much. That doesn't make sense. But I don't know. Do you just ask for the stars?

1:13:58 Lydia: Million dollars per page of this complaint.

1:14:02 MJ: You're right. Different audiences. And we know when we look at this who they're writing for. Because they're like, oh, my God, his claims are so strong. They're $400 trillion worth. Like, yeah, they don't, you can. And it sucks when someone reads it and is like, no, thank you. This doesn't work. Goodbye. And it ends up potentially costing you that $400 million plus more because you brought a stupid claim for defamation. Like, this is, I don't know, this isthooting yourself in the foot.

1:14:08 Lydia: Yeah. Give it to her. Justin. Yeah, man.

1:14:15 Thomas: You can just write things on a piece of paper.

1:14:33 Thomas: We can dream. We Can Dream. Yeah, it seems pretty terrible. Wow, we got through the whole thing.

1:14:35 Lydia: We did.

1:14:39 Thomas: Wow. Wow, MJ.

1:14:41 MJ: We did it.

1:14:41 Thomas: Thank you so much for being, I wouldn't have wanted to do it with anyone else. Thanks for being here. When we finish this horrible thing, I don't, people should buy us, they should, they should make a greeting card for this specific thing. Wow, you finished the Baldoni amended complaint. It's that bad.

1:14:54 Lydia: It, you survived the, yeah. Thank

1:14:57 MJ: I think you need to get, I mean, so many people need to listen to you guys going through this complaint though, because it's like, I knew it was bad. And then I listened to you go through it and I was like, Oh my God, it's so bad. Not maybe the causes of action, but the listening to you, go through the facts and figure it, figure the things out that you did. You're like, what the heck? Like who was okay with this? Who signed off on this? So thank you. I mean, what a service you did,

1:15:12 Thomas: Wow.

1:15:24 Thomas: That, that is such an honor coming from you. And I just think that it wasn't worth it. AndI regret every moment of it. It is mainly what I want to say.

1:15:30 MJ: It was worth it to listen to it. So thank Thank you.

1:15:33 Lydia: You. Dang.

1:15:37 Thomas: Oh boy. All right. Well, MJ, uh, I'm sure we'll be in touch. Anything you want to, uh, direct people to, the usual socials? Anything special going on your, your online life? Holy shit.

1:15:51 Lydia: Dang.

1:15:48 MJ: Officially passed 200,000 followers on threads. I know my DMs right now are either you're using pop culture to convert people to hate Donald Trump or wait for it. Wait for it you are using Donald Trump to make people like Blake Lively and I'm like who's paying me?

1:15:53 Thomas: That's crazy. You're using Donald Trump to get, oh boy, or yeah.

1:16:14 MJ: I don't know at this point. I'm also potentially a right-wing plant that's going to flip at some point. That's the new angle.

1:16:15 Lydia: Interesting.

1:16:15 Thomas: That's gonna flip. Why? Okay.

1:16:23 MJ: So those are all fun, and still I say mean things about the current administration and get so much more hate from Justin Baldoni fans, so living the dream on the

1:16:33 Thomas: Wow. Wow. Oh boy. Yeah, it's, it's really funny. It's that there's no option of, like, no, I just think this is what happened and these arguments suck. There's no option for that. You don't get to. No, I guess. No, no.

1:16:41 MJ: Internet, not I'm like, I'm just yelling into the void, and sometimes people yell back, and I guess, yes, everyone still hates women is the lesson I've learned over the past month. I don't know. I'm more pro -Blake, more angry about the Alexander Brothers trial like this is. So you guys are a delight.

1:16:56 Thomas: Oof. Yeah. Did you say you're covering that?

1:17:03 Lydia: Epstein files, everything, man.

1:17:05 MJ: I am reading all of it and I have made one post about it to tell people to cover it. I'll probably cover it maybe when they, the case like.

1:17:08 Thomas: Oh, man. Yeah, we were considering something. We'll see. There's too much stuff. But yeah, I was just wondering if anyone wanted to check out. So you did write one thing on it? Oh, nice.

1:17:22 MJ: Yes, directing people where to look for it. And it got a lot of people being like, I have never even heard about this. And I'm like, yeah, because crisis PR works very good at their job. So many people were like, I had no idea this happened. And they're like, I'm going to follow it now.

1:17:30 Thomas: Jeez. Yeah. How? How? Yeah, that's crazy.

1:17:30 Lydia: They're good at their jobs. Yeah.

1:17:38 Thomas: Wow. Well, you're doing great work.

1:17:40 MJ: So I hope maybe I'll just start covering it. So are you.

1:17:42 Thomas: Really appreciate you. And yeah, Yeah, I expect our greeting card in the mail, not necessarily from you, but from the whole audience, everybody, all three listeners in the audience need to send us a card.

1:17:48 Lydia: Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

1:17:55 MJ: I'll get my little one on it.

1:17:57 Thomas: All right. Well, thanks so much. And thanks for listening, everyone. We'll see you next time. It'll be sandwich time, I think. See you for sandwich time.

1:18:03 Lydia: Sandwich trial.

1:18:05 MJ: Thanks guys.

1:18:28 MJ: Shut up.

1:18:30 Lydia: Oh, you guys are really weak.

1:18:34 MJ: These people kind of suck.

1:18:37 Lydia: Like they're all just, you know, shaking each other's whatevers. And, and just penises. I don't know. I don't know, everyone is just jerking each other off. I don't know. That's what, yeah, like

1:18:43 Thomas: What? That's not an expression. Oh, OK. That's something. You at least said something that's something Do you think we men do a thing where like, hi, nice to meet you? Like shake penises. That'd be pretty cool if we could shake each other's. I gotta admit you've that, that I'm, I'm intrigued. Yeah.

1:18:55 MJ: Okay.

1:18:55 Lydia: Dogs sniff each other's butts and men shake each other's penises. That's the world I want to live in.

1:19:06 MJ: Okay, don't start googling hazing at fraternities then, please. You're not wrong, I completely agree with you. This One. Sorry, I, I'm sorry.

1:19:14 Lydia: Clean one.

1:19:09 Thomas: Oh God. Let's get it. Let'S get a take where you're not the character from space balls. Dog shit.

1:19:20 MJ: This one sucks.

1:19:27 Lydia: Give it to her, Justin.