Justin Baldoni‘s lawyer has broken his silence after a judge dismissed his case against Blake Lively and Ryan Reynolds due to missing a crucial deadline.
To recap: back in June, Baldoni’s $400 million defamation countersuit against the It Ends With Us actress was dismissed and his lawyer said he would file an amended complaint, but that never happened.
Then, last month, Judge Lewis J. Liman signed off on the “final judgement”, confirming that Baldoni and his Wayfarer Studios team missed their deadline and the case would not go ahead.
In a statement to Daily Mail, Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman denied reports that his team had missed a deadline: “At this point, we have to set the record straight: no deadlines were missed. Our clients chose not to amend their complaint to preserve appeal rights.”
“In the meantime, we are focusing on Ms Lively’s claims,” he added.
“We remain fully committed to pursuing the truth through every legal and factual avenue available and look forward to our day in court.”
He also said the “truth regarding this case continues to be completely distorted in the media” in relation to the latest ruling, and that “even something as simple as a procedural update has resulted in a total mischaracterisation”.
In his ruling, Judge Lewis J. Liman said he’d warned the parties on October 17 that he was considering wrapping up the case for good — and the only one to respond was Blake Lively.
The Gossip Girl star asked the judge to officially close the case but keep her request for legal fees active, which he agreed to.
After the case was dismissed, Lively’s lawyers called the legal win “complete vindication” for the star.
“As we have said from day one, this ‘$400 million’ lawsuit was a sham, and the Court saw right through it,” they said in a statement in June, adding that they “look forward to the next round, which is seeking attorneys’ fees, treble damages and punitive damages” against Baldoni and others “who perpetrated this abusive litigation”.
Lively also spoke out about the lawsuit in a message on her Instagram Stories following the news.
“Like so many others, I’ve felt the pain of a retaliatory lawsuit, including the manufactured shame that tries to break us,” she wrote. “While the suit against me was defeated, so many don’t have the resources to fight back.”
Meanwhile, Baldoni’s attorney, Bryan Freedman, took umbrage with Lively and her team for their “predictable declaration of victory”, which he stated was “false”.
Freedman continued, “This case is about false accusations of sexual harassment and retaliation and a nonexistent smear campaign, which Ms. Lively’s own team conveniently describes as ‘untraceable’ because they cannot prove what never happened.”
Baldoni still has the option to appeal the ruling.
While the countersuit has been dropped, Blake Lively’s lawsuit against Justin Baldoni is set to go to trial in March.
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