Blake Lively and her legal team will not get everything they requested in a subpoena seeking to obtain the phone records of Justin Baldoni and his camp, as a judge referred to the “It Ends With Us” actress’ effort as “overly intrusive and disproportionate to the needs of the case.”
On Friday, in a six-page response, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman partly rejected Lively’s request, calling it “overly broad and invasive” as it could ultimately breach the privacy of Baldoni associates and other uninvolved individuals if the records included calls or text messages that were personal or sensitive in nature.
“This request implicates legitimate privacy interests,” Liman wrote. “Even though Lively has narrowed her request to exclude the content of calls or messages, the phone records themselves would still contain sensitive information regarding doctors, psychologists or even acquaintances the Wayfarer parties spoke to, and when.”
It continued: “Lively has not provided a basis to believe that the broad discovery she seeks will reveal information regarding unknown participants in the negative media campaign proportionate to the burden of the Wayfarer Parties’ privacy interests.”
The judge closed out his decision, saying Lively “may make discovery requests tailored to those individuals” and is “permitted to use tools of discovery to identify the contact information or telephone numbers for those individuals,” but added that “even assuming additional individuals participated in the alleged campaign, the hope that discovery will turn up information on such parties does not justify the broad scope of the subpoenas.”
In the subpoena Lively submitted to AT&T, Verizon and T-Mobile earlier this month, the actress’ team requested “call logs, text logs, data logs and cell site location information” from her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director Baldoni and any phones connected with his company Wayfarer Studios dating back to 2022 in an effort to gain evidence that would support her claims against the actor and director.
Responding to the judge’s decision on Friday, Baldoni’s camp was celebratory, calling Lively’s efforts “egregious.”
“The Court put a stop to Ms. Lively’s egregious attempt to invade our clients’ privacy. This is a big win,” Baldoni’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement to TheWrap. “No matter how the Lively Parties may try to spin this decision, the Court saw their efforts for what they really are: a desperate fishing expedition intended to salvage their debunked claims long after they already savaged our clients’ reputations in the New York Times.”
Lively’s spokesperson was less enthused by the decision, saying that their blocked access to call records indicates that something is being hidden from them.
“What is Bryan Freedman hiding? After promising to release all the ‘receipts,’ Freedman ran into court to keep secret the phone records of who Baldoni, Heath, Sarowitz, Nathan, Wallace and Abel were calling during their retaliatory campaign,” the spokesperson said. “So, instead of getting these records from the phone carriers the way we initially requested, the judge has ruled that if we simply submit more specific requests, we will be able to get the records we are seeking. Today we will do that, we are submitting those requests directly to defendants involved and we look forward to seeing the records.”
Also on Friday, Lively added PR crisis manager Nick Shapiro to her team.
“The litigation team for Ms. Lively retained Mr. Shapiro to advise on the legal communications strategy for the ongoing sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit occurring in the Southern District of New York,” Lively’s legal team said in a statement to TheWrap.
