Blake Lively is refusing to slim down her case against Justin Baldoni even though all the most serious allegations have been dismissed by a judge, his lawyers have claimed.
The actress wants to produce a whopping 41 witness at trial and has 1,000 items on her exhibit list with dozens more to come, Baldoni says.
This is despite the judge ruling on Thursday of last week that 10 of her 13 claims, including all her allegations of sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us, the movie they both starred in and Baldoni directed, could not proceed to trial.
Baldoni on Thursday made it clear that he will give evidence in the tiral due to start May 18.
In a letter to the court his lawyers said he will provide in person testimony’ because what he has to say ‘remains relevant to refute (Lively’s) false allegations of a smear campaign.’
The bickering between the two sides comes in the final weeks before the blockbuster three-week trial is due to start at the federal court in New York on May 18.
Lively claimed in her lawsuit, which was filed in December 2024, that she suffered at least $161 million in damages after Baldoni sexually harassed her on the set and then launched an online smear campaign against her.
In his ruling last week, Judge Lewis Liman said that the only claims that will go to trial are: breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation, all of which Baldoni denies.
The battle over witnesses began last week when Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb accused Baldoni’s lawyers of refusing to tell them who would be testifying at the trial, and which witnesses would appear in person.
Gottlieb said that Baldoni was trying to ‘manufacture a strategic advantage’ by depriving Lively of information that could help her prepare for the case.
Baldoni’s response was filed by his lawyer Ellyn Garofalo whose two-page letter has an exasperated tone to it.
She said that their legal team needed more time to refine their witness list after the judge’s ruling.
But two days after the judge’s decision was revealed, Lively’s legal team told them to ‘immediately disclose’ who would be testifying in person.
‘Plaintiff (Lively) ignored her own witness list, which suffered from the same shortcomings she complains of,’ Garofalo noted.
According to Garofalo, Baldoni’s lawyers attempted to explain to Lively that they were still processing the impact of the court’s ruling.
Garofalo wrote: ‘Counsel assured plaintiff that…deposition designations would be provided timely for each of the dismissed defendants, pending an imminent decision on whether they would appear at trial.
‘Plaintiff, however, continued to demand that defendants immediately identify those witnesses who will appear at trial and those who will not.
‘Plaintiff denies that the summary judgment motion ruling has any effect whatsoever on the scope of issues to be tried or the relevant evidence they will present at trial.
‘Plaintiff has declined to substantially narrow her witness list which identifies 41 witnesses or her exhibit list which stands at approximately 1,000 exhibits.’
On Thursday alone, Lively said she was adding ‘dozens of new exhibits’ to the list, Garofalo said.
In the filing, Garofalo listed their witnesses who would be giving evidence in person: Baldoni; Jamey Heath, the producer on the film and Melissa Nathan, the crisis PR who they hired to manage the fallout from the film’s release.
Heath is likely to be asked about allegedly walking into Lively’s trailer while she was breastfeeding, a claim he denies.
Nathan, who runs her own PR agency called The Agency Group, is likely to be questioned about whether she orchestrated the ‘smear campaign’ and texts in which she bragged about how she could ‘bury anyone’.
However some of the other key players in the case are not going to appear in person, the filing states.
They are Jen Abel, a PR who represented Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer, and Steve Sarowitz, Baldoni’s billionaire friend who bankrolled the film.
Judge Liman filed an order stating that Lively’s request to force Baldoni’s side to hand over details about their witnesses, including who would be appearing in person, was now ‘moot’.
Baldoni had also filed his own lawsuit, a $400 million defamation case against Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds, as well as the New York Times.
The judge dismissed his case in its entirety.
