17 January 2025
DEFAMATION (US) –Justin Baldoni sues It Ends With Us co-star Blake Likely for defamation
Actor and director Justin Baldoni is suing his It Ends With Us co-star Blake Lively for defamation, claiming she and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, have falsely accused him of sexual harassment.
The case is the latest development in a feud that has seen Lively sue Baldoni for allegedly orchestrating a smear campaign against her and Baldoni sue The New York Times for reporting Lively’s claims.
It Ends With Us was released in August last year. The film is about domestic abuse and Lively faced criticism at the time for the way she promoted it, with some commentators accusing her of failing to treat the subject matter with the level of seriousness it deserved.
Four months later, Lively accused Baldoni of sexually inappropriate behaviour on set and of orchestrating a plan to "destroy" her reputation by running a sophisticated, coordinated, and well-financed retaliation plan" against her.
The New York Times reported Lively’s claims in detail. Several days later, Baldoni sued the newspaper for defamation as part of a $250 million lawsuit, alleging that it worked with Lively to damage his reputation and ignored evidence which contradicted her claims about him.
The newspaper has indicated that it intends to stand by its reporting and defend the claim because its story was "meticulously and responsibly reported" and based on a review of thousands of pages of original documents including text messages.
Baldoni has now referenced many of those same messages in his claim against Lively, arguing that she had previously quoted them out of context in order to destroy him. Baldoni is seeking $400 million in damages in his claim against Lively.
In the claim, Baldoni alleges that “this is not a case about celebrities sniping at each other in the press … This is a case about two of the most powerful stars in the world deploying their enormous power to steal an entire film right out of the hands of its director and production studio.”
zoom-in will follow developments with interest over the coming months.
DEFAMATION & PRIVACY (UK) – Amazon defeats claim brought by mother of Nicola Adams
Amazon Prime Video has obtained summary judgment in a defamation and privacy claim brought against it by Denver Adams, the mother of the Team GB Olympic boxing champion Nicola Adams.
The claim, about the film Lioness: The Nicola Adams Story, was dismissed by the High Court after the Court concluded that it did not have a realistic prospect of success, avoiding the need for a full trial.
In the film, which was released on Prime Video in 2021, Nicola revealed that her mother had sent her text messages which she said perpetuated, in a different form, the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her father as a child.
Nicola’s mother did not dispute the existence of the messages but claimed that the film was defamatory of her because the breakdown in her relationship with Nicola was caused by an underlying family dispute, not her messages.
Amazon sought to defend the film on the basis that Nicola’s comments about the text messages were true and protected by the defence of honest opinion.
The High Court concluded that to the extent that Nicola’s comments were a statement of fact they were “substantially true” because the existence of abusive texts was not in dispute and there was ample evidence in the press of some degree of violence from Nicola’s father to Nicola and her mother during Nicola’s childhood.
The Court considered that it was “preposterous to suggest that an adult recalling their childhood might not be of the opinion that they suffered abuse” in such circumstances.
The Court went on to note that Nicola’s mother’s “… arguments about the level of violence experienced by Nicola as a child and the minimisation of Nicola’s experience are perhaps more damning than the words complained of …” and the more Nicola’s mother’s lawyer “developed the arguments during the hearing, the more irrelevant and inappropriate they became … rather than addressing the honest opinion defence as it related to the defendant, it was another attempt to discredit Nicola, albeit a fundamentally misjudged one”.
Nicola’s mother claimed that the film infringed her privacy because it included information about Nicola’s upbringing and experiences of domestic violence as a child as well as Nicola’s comments about the text messages. Amazon argued that this information could not be considered private in the circumstances.
The Court agreed with Amazon, concluding that Nicola’s mother’s privacy claim didn’t have a realistic prospect of success because “Nicola’s autobiography was published in 2017 and contained references to difficulties she encountered in childhood as well as domestic violence in the home growing up. Since then, she has spoken about these aspects of her childhood repeatedly in the press … there is nothing in it that … could be described as a fundamentally new and specific piece of information”.
The Court concluded that the discussion about the text messages could not attract a reasonable expectation of privacy because the film only included a general description of the messages and a reference to the breakdown in the relationship between Nicola and her mother.
In any event, the Court went on to state that any residual privacy rights that Nicola’s mother may have had were far outweighed by the right of Amazon and Nicola to tell the story of her life.
In concluding its analysis of the privacy claim, the Court noted that the underlying reason behind it appeared to be Nicola’s mother’s “concerns about damage to her reputation and the family rift rather than a sudden desire for privacy in relation to information that had already been widely shared in the public domain”.
The case is noteworthy because the bar that defendants must meet in order to obtain summary judgment is a relatively high one. Amazon will no doubt be pleased that the Court agreed with it that Nicola’s mother’s claim was not strong enough to warrant consideration at a full trial.
DEFAMATION (UK) – Football Club owner given permission to continue defamation claim
Nottingham Forest Football Club owner Evangelos Marinakis has been told his defamation claim of at least £2.1m against a Greek football rival can proceed in London’s High Court.
Marinakis, who also owns Greek football club, Olympiacos, is suing Irini Karipidis, the owner of Greek football rivals, Aris, over several “false” allegations including that he had conducted match-fixing in Greece, that he was part of a criminal organisation engaging in fraud, attempted extortion, bribery and intimidation in relation to national football in Greece and that he was suspected of involvement in drug trafficking.
Marinakis’ case is that the allegations, which are completely untrue, were published on mobile billboards driven around Nottingham Forest’s stadium on two matchdays, on a website, on X (formerly Twitter) and on YouTube.
In order to proceed, Marinakis had to establish that his claim had a real, as opposed to a fanciful, prospect of success.
A statement is not defamatory unless a claimant can show that its publication has caused or is likely to cause serious harm to the claimant’s reputation. Karipidis’ barrister argued that there was no evidence of serious harm to Mr Marinakis’ reputation from the publications and one witness statement suggested that Marinakis’ pre-existing reputation in England was so bad that the publications could not have caused him further serious harm – a claim disputed by Marinakis’ barrister.
The judge found that an inference of serious harm appeared “hard to resist” due to the gravity of the allegations and the currently available information about the nature and extent of each publication.
Karipidis’ barrister also argued that the proceedings should not be allowed to proceed because they were an abuse of process. He claimed that their purpose was not vindication of Marinakis’ rights, but to intimidate and harass Karipidis. However, the judge rejected this argument concluding that the proceedings seemed entirely plausible, substantial and well-founded and the case could proceed.
Karipidis’ barrister indicated that there were clear defences and that the published allegations were substantially true and/or were protected as publications on matters of public interest – zoom-in will follow the developments in the case.
During this preliminary hearing, some tantalising background information emerged about how the defendant claimed the dispute between the parties arose.
Karipidis claimed that it stemmed from an incident at a football match between Olympiacos and Aris where Marinakis approached Karipidis’ brother to fix a critical game between the teams. Karipidis’ brother refused and Olympiacos finished the season in third place in the league. It was alleged that at the end of the game Marinakis told Karipidis’ brother “you are finished” and “I will destroy you”. Thereafter, it was claimed Marinakis began a campaign of intimidation and interference with the lives and businesses of Karipidis and her brother. Marinakis’ position is that these allegations are untrue and that these events did not take place.
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