Justin Baldoni Lawsuit PAUSED By Judge! Whoa!
The New York Times has won a small victory in their battle against Justin Baldoni!
Days after filing a motion to dismiss the actor’s defamation lawsuit against them, the publication was granted a pause on the suit. On Tuesday, per documents obtained by Deadline, Judge Lewis J. Liman agreed with the newspaper’s request to pause discovery in the case while he reviews their motion to dismiss the lawsuit. The ruling read:
“The Wayfarer Parties are unlikely to be unfairly prejudiced by a stay while the Court decides the pending motion.”
Whoa!
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He continued:
“The NY Times did not delay filing its motion; it filed the motion within 21 days of being served. The Court intends to address the motion to dismiss promptly after it is fully submitted. To the extent that the Wayfarer Parties are concerned about delay, they have it within their power to accelerate their contemplated further amended complaint or their opposition to the motion to dismiss. The Wayfarer Parties themselves suggest that discovery from the NY Times is unlikely to be voluminous.”
A spokesperson for the NYT celebrated the win in a statement to Us Weekly, saying:
“We appreciate the court’s decision today, which recognizes the important First Amendment values at stake here. The court has stopped Mr. Baldoni from burdening The Times with discovery requests in a case that should never have been brought.”
As mentioned, this comes just four days after the publication asked to be removed from Justin’s $400 lawsuit against them and several others, claiming they did nothing wrong when reporting on Blake Lively‘s California Civil Rights Department complaint about her It Ends With Us co-star/director and his colleagues. Justin had previously sued the outlet for $250 million in California, but dropped that filing and added the paper to his amended complaint against the Gossip Girl star and others in New York, per Deadline. For now, things are headed in the right direction for the Times…
Thoughts?? Share ‘em in the comments (below).
[Image via NBC/ABC/YouTube]
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