Blake Lively just scored a win in her legal dispute with Justin Baldoni…
As we previously reported, the Gossip Girl alum gave her deposition in the ongoing lawsuit battle in New York City late last month — right in front of her former It Ends With Us co-star! Yep, Justin was in the room where it happened! And once it was over, Blake’s team called out the 41-year-old actor! Why? She claimed he leaked details of the deposition immediately to “create a media circus” around the whole thing!
Per Us Weekly, the actress also took issue with Justin’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, attaching a portion of her deposition to a recent court motion. The transcript was reportedly filed under seal, meaning it is kept confidential, so her legal team argued it was improper to attach it. While Blake noted she plans to have her testimony heard, she asked that the full 292-page transcript not be released until it was “reviewed, corrected or finalized.” She claimed Justin’s team included the transcript “solely for strategic media and public-relations purposes.” How so? She alleged they tried to make it look like she wanted the transcript sealed.
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Freedman fired back, telling the court the transcript was under seal. He also slammed Blake’s claim that they are trying to make her defend the “continued sealing of the transcript,” adding:
“Lively has the option of moving to keep the document sealed; although it is puzzling why she seeks to conceal her own testimony in an action in which she is the plaintiff.”
But what does the federal judge presiding over the case think? According to Us Weekly, the judge sided with Blake on Friday and granted her request to stop Justin’s team from using the transcript in court until it is finalized! Whoa! The Jane the Virgin alum also got scolded by the judge, who called his team out for unnecessarily trying to stir up a “scandal” with the deposition. The new order stated:
“[Baldoni’s team’s] attachment of the entire, nearly 300-page deposition — after citing only two pages of it in the Letter — served no proper litigation purpose and instead appears to have been intended to burden Lively (and as a result, the Court) and to invite public speculation and scandal. Even if the cited deposition portions were relevant or provided support for the [Baldoni’s team’s] arguments — both of which are far from clear — [Baldoni’s team has] not even attempted to argue that the entire deposition was relevant. Nor could they.”
Ultimately, the judge feels Justin’s team abused the court’s docket:
“The conclusion is inescapable that [Baldoni’s team] filed gratuitous amounts of irrelevant pages so that, if Lively moved for continued sealing of the irrelevant pages, the [Baldoni’s team] could then use Lively’s response for their own public-relations purposes. The Court has not only the power but also the responsibility to step in.”
Wow! The judge came at Justin hard!
Thoughts, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF in the comments below.
[Image via MEGA/WENN, Access Hollywood/YouTube]
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