A choose on Tuesday signaled he could dismiss the New York Times as a defendant in a $400 million defamation lawsuit the place the actor Justin Baldoni alleged the newspaper colluded with the actress Blake Lively to smear him after she accused him of sexual harassment.
U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan stated the Times’ February 28 movement to be excused from the case supplied “substantial grounds for dismissal” and “a strong showing that its motion to dismiss is likely to succeed on the merits.”
Baldoni has denied sexually harassing Lively or partaking in a smear marketing campaign.
He and Lively have filed competing civil lawsuits stemming from Lively’s declare that Baldoni sexually harassed her whereas filming the 2024 film “It Ends With Us,” which Baldoni additionally directed. Lively’s husband Ryan Reynolds can be a defendant in Baldoni’s lawsuit.
Lawyers for Baldoni and his manufacturing firm Wayfarer Studios didn’t instantly reply to requests for remark. Lively’s and Reynolds’ attorneys didn’t instantly reply to comparable requests.
Baldoni accused the Times of working behind the scenes with Lively on a false and malicious narrative and changing into a “conduit for her revenge,” leading to its December 21, 2024 article “‘We Can Bury Anyone’: Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.”
In its dismissal movement, the Times stated it engaged merely in news gathering and publishing the article, and that the plaintiffs didn’t present it acted with precise malice.
The newspaper additionally stated the only alleged defamatory assertion within the article – that the plaintiffs orchestrated a “smear campaign” in retaliation for Lively complaining about sexual harassment – was protected opinion.
Liman additionally granted the Times’ request to place discovery, or the gathering of proof, on maintain pending a call on its movement to dismiss.
“We appreciate the court’s decision today, which recognizes the important First Amendment values at stake,” Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha stated in a press release. “The court has stopped Mr. Baldoni from burdening The Times with discovery requests in a case that should never have been brought.”
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