Blake Vigorous is asking a choose to dismiss Justin Baldoni‘s $US400 million (approx. $635 million) lawsuit in opposition to her, arguing that her It Ends With Us co-star is “weaponising” his personal defamation declare to retaliate in opposition to her for publicly talking out about her sexual harassment accusations in opposition to him.
Vigorous’s movement to dismiss, filed on Thursday (in a single day in Australia), comes simply two days after her husband Ryan Reynolds additionally filed a movement to dismiss, asking the choose to drop him from the case.
Baldoni, his enterprise associates and his manufacturing firm, Wayfarer Studios, are suing Vigorous and Reynolds, together with their publicist, for $US400 million (approx. $635 million), claiming that the Hollywood energy couple and their workforce “hijacked” his movie after which sought out to “destroy” his profession.
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(The couple’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, has additionally filed her personal movement to dismiss.)
Attorneys for Vigorous argued that she is protected underneath a California legislation that prohibits retaliatory defamation lawsuits based mostly on sexual harassment allegations. The laws was signed into legislation by California Governor Gavin Newsom in October 2023.
Baldoni has accused Vigorous of working to “destroy” him professionally by collaborating with the New York Occasions on a “self-serving” story in regards to the criticism she filed with the California Civil Rights Division in December, by which she accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation. However of their newest submitting, Vigorous’s attorneys argue she was “legally entitled to file her criticism and disclose it to the general public,” together with with the press.
(The New York Occasions has beforehand stated it stands by its reporting and has requested the court docket to dismiss the $US250 million [approx. $400 million) lawsuit the publication is facing from Baldoni.)
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“The Wayfarer Parties have created more liability for themselves by their malicious efforts to sue Ms. Lively ‘into oblivion,'” attorneys for Lively wrote in their motion to dismiss.
Baldoni has denied all sexual harassment and retaliation claims made by Lively. His attorney previously told CNN that “anyone actively involved in any possible connection with this abhorrent conduct will be sued into oblivion.”
In asking the court to dismiss Baldoni’s claims, Lively’s attorneys state in their filing that nothing in the lawsuit “resembles an actionable legal claim,” calling it a “public relations instrument” with the sole purpose of carrying out Baldoni’s “sinister campaign” to punish Lively for speaking out about sexual harassment and retaliation.
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Lively’s attorneys argue that “in lieu of concrete facts,” the complaint from Baldoni and others “resorts to implausible conjecture and conspiracy theories to allege that Ms. Lively ‘falsified’ her allegations.”
“On the one hand, the Wayfarer Parties insist that Ms. Lively is an immensely powerful Hollywood superstar who, along with her influential husband, wielded power to steal creative control over the film,” Lively’s filing states. “But on the other hand, they claim she was so powerless that the only way she could have any power was by manufacturing sexual harassment allegations almost a year in advance in a Machiavellian long game. These two concepts contradict each other and therefore cannot coexist.”
Lively’s attorneys are also asking the judge to award her attorneys fees, and treble damages and punitive damages.
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In Reynolds’ request to drop him from the lawsuit, his attorneys argued that Baldoni’s case against amounts to “hurt feelings” and that his only involvement has been as a “supportive spouse.”
Reynolds’ filing claimed that the lawsuit filed by Baldoni and others is based on two times that Reynolds allegedly called Baldoni a “predator,” but said that nothing in the lawsuit suggests that Reynolds did not believe this to be true.
“Mr. Reynolds genuinely, perhaps passionately, believes that Mr. Baldoni’s behaviour is reflective of a ‘predator,'” Reynolds’ filing reads, adding that “calling someone a ‘predator’ amounts to a constitutionally protected opinion.”
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Lively filed an amended complaint last month, alleging other women also raised claims about Baldoni’s behaviour on set.
Baldoni has denied those allegations.
CNN has reached out to his representatives for comment on Lively’s motion to dismiss.
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