So what does he do next from here? Obviously you said he’s gonna appeal and Yes, that’s gonna take, I’m assuming a lot of time before three judges vote on that.
Yeah. Well, he’s gonna amend first probably. Yeah. And I, you know, I don’t know what, what strategic decision they will make.
I’m sure they’ll file a notice of appeal you know, but. You’re supposed to wait for finality to, to appeal, and if you’re appealing only a partial dismissal, it gets complicated. So, but the next thing to focus on is gonna be amending the complaint to see if they can allege either an implied covenant or a tortious interference claim that will stick.
What’s interesting to me is, you know this, we’re recording this around 8:30 PM Central time. This came down. What, eight, 10 hours ago? I’m surprised Brian Friedman hasn’t released a statement. I mean, he was always front and center releasing statements. Anytime they filed anything in response to anything that Blake Lively’s lawyer said.
I mean, it was within an hour this guy had said something and he hasn’t said a word in eight to 10 hours, which is a little bit surprising to me ’cause he usually has a lot to say. What do you think?
He knows This is a huge loss and look. I don’t know. I’d be interested to see if it telegraphs the same way to other people, but to me this telegraphs, as the lawyers messed this up, it was how the lawyers pled the claims in this big, clunky, messy, inappropriate complaint, cross complaint.
You know, it was a real shot across the bow, I think, to Brian Friedman and the way they’ve been litigating this case, and I bet he’s. Regrouping right now. Mm. Because this really suggests that a lot of the errors were in counsel’s decisions in how to plead the complaint, as opposed to, for instance, you know, oh, there’s, that’s actually just not a valid claim under California law.
Or, you know, you think that, you know, breaching a contract is a claim, but it, there’s no contract here. Something like that.
Well, what, what do you say to the kind of the tweets that I read earlier about, well, the system favors the louder voice with more power. And, you know, they’re just siding with Blake because basically she’s basically, they’re implying that, oh, she’s an Alister and he’s an O buddy.
And they, and they sided with her. And I I, what is your take on those? And, you know, there’s no recourse for her trying to wreck Justin’s career. And he tries to sue her and they’re like. Get outta here buddy, with this garbage lawsuit. Like what’s your take on that?
Yeah. So that’s not a function of Blake, you know, being the bigger power and, you know, the law doesn’t give the little guys the ability to vindicate themselves.
It, it’s a function of the, the law, right? I mean, it’s just very well known that defamation lawsuits do not lie. Where, or you know, you can’t, which means legally you can’t have a defamation lawsuit. Where it’s based on litigation conduct and it is very hard to win a defamation lawsuit against a publication when they’re reprinting a legal document.
So, you know, there, I know there are claims to the contrary, like the document that they relied on had not yet been filed, things like that. And you know, those are some of the gray areas that I’m interested in why the judge didn’t give them leave to ple. But this has nothing to do with the big guy winning.
This is just the way the law works and it’s the law kind of protecting the legal system itself from abuse.
So based on what you just said, it seems like the tweets that I read are just from people that have been defending Justin Bian saying, Blake’s gonna lose this thing. She’s getting cremated, and now they’re just upset and butt hurt.
That
Yes.
Okay.
Yeah, I don’t think anybody who really understands the system well would say this is proof that, you know, the A-list Hollywood machine always wins. Yeah, I, I do think that there are a lot of arguments to be made that this is proof of, you know, some holes may be in the system, but it’s certainly not reflective of there just being, you know, some.
You know, machine going on that just runs over all the little guys that, that has nothing to do with why he, he lost.
Okay. Which is something like I, you mentioned in the beginning, you kind of talked about this from the very beginning, that you were like, Brian Friedman is playing this out in the court of public opinion, and you were, you were very vocal from the beginning.
Like, I’m not really sure about this countersuit, it’s filled with a lot of holes here. And I, I don’t, yes, but I see. But you also said, I see what he’s doing. You were never swayed or dissuaded by what the purpose of his countersuit was, but you just said, I, I do see some holes in this.
Yeah. There were legal holes and I think that most people, and again, I really, I, I am trying to think of the right way to say this.
This is not to say that I think Blake is the, is is in the right in what happened. Yeah. From everything I’ve seen, she was not in the right. But there were legal problems with the claims that Justin Baldoni was bringing. But instead of just kind of slinking away or defending against them quietly, they fought back hard and they, they caught eyeballs.
You know, I think we talked about this, the $400 million was a number they picked to grab headlines. You know, that doesn’t mean it was wrong to do that, but, you know, a, a defamation lawsuit against the New York Times. I, I bet if you were ever to, you know, not that they would ever say this, it would be inappropriate to at this juncture, but if you were ever to have a drink with them behind the scenes in 20 years, I bet you the lawyers did not think that was ultimately gonna succeed.
You know, that was to make a point about how poorly they thought the New York Times acted.
Yeah.
And we’re seeing in some of those tweets you read, and in some of the other press, we’re seeing the benefits that have been reaped because there are a lot of people. Who, who see this dismissal as a fundamental failure of the system to vindicate the, you know, the white hat as opposed to people saying, oh gosh, well I guess, you know, Justin Baldoni was wrong after all.
So it really kind of, you know, if anything vindicates, the approach they took for now
and didn’t I read, maybe I read either correctly or incorrectly. The New York Times has never lost a defamation lawsuit. Like they just, you’re never gonna go up against them and win something like that.
That sounds right to me.
I wouldn’t be surprised. Okay. This, this is not a claim with a, with a good chance of success, particularly when they are reprinting a legal document because it would really chill, you know? And look, that’s, I, I. There’s a lot of circumstantial evidence that there was some funny stuff going on behind the scenes.
Yeah.
But you know, we want our media to be able to report on issues without fear of retaliation. And we don’t actually, in society, want a standard where the media cannot take a complaint that’s either been filed or is about to be filed in court. And say, look, this claim has been filed. Look, look at what this person is alleging and worry that if it turns out the person is lying, they’re gonna get sued.
We don’t want that. As a society, that’s not a good outcome.
Yeah.
So, you know, there was some more going on here, which I really thought might, you know, at least garner leave to amend, but I, I don’t think any lawyers counted on this suit against the New York Times actually succeeding. Whether it was at the motion to dismiss or maybe it’s summary judgment, which is when you get another chance to kind of kick out all the claims once you’ve done discovery.
And that’s kind of more where I saw a lot of this happening because when you’re pleading a complaint, you don’t know a lot of the facts yet. You haven’t seen secret emails, you know, you have, you don’t know what malice Ryan Reynolds might have had, if any. That’s something that you need discovery for and when you kick it at the pleading stage, there’s no chance for that discovery.
Hmm. Well, unfortunately for the I guess baldoni supporters, not a good day for them yesterday, like I said, I’m pretty indifferent on the whole case, just ’cause I haven’t really paid as much attention to it as I thought I would when it first started, when I had about a week of interest in it. And then I was just like, okay, way too many motions.
I’m getting totally confused on what’s happening and I kind of just. Gave up. You know, you see things here and there and you see what he’s alleging. And the clips that came out from filming, you know, we went, we went over all this, remember we did that whole video on, look at them on the filming this scene where they’re supposed to be a couple that’s falling in love.
And it’s like, was that uncomfortable? He doesn’t, everyone’s like people that supported Baldon. Well, that does. She’s laughing and she’s giggling and she’s smiling. And then. Again, but we also know that women will laugh and giggle and surprise when and and act that way when they feel uncomfortable. So who are we to tell Blake Lively?
Oh, she wasn’t uncomfortable in that scene. You know, I, it just absolutely, you know, we just don know and, and
that’s what, yeah. And that’s why I, I saw a lot of these claims, you know, and look, that claim is still alive. The sexual harassment claim that she filed is still alive.
Yeah.
But to me, those are all issues for the jury.
You know, those are questions of fact. And to conclude that, that there hasn’t even been. You know, the, a modicum of suggestion in the allegations that any of these facts could exist, I, I think is wrong. I’m, I’m very surprised that they were dismissed without leave to amend.
Yeah. Yeah. It does seem, it does seem surprising based on what you said, but again this thing is, is still ongoing.
I’ll be curious to see what Brian Friedman says next, where it goes from here. So we will obviously. Probably talk about this again when something else major happens in this case. Rachel, thanks for coming on. Briefly, how much fun did you have at the party last weekend? Huh?
Oh, it was a blast.
It was a blast. It was so much fun. Your fans are so wonderful. They really are. There’s, they’re such wonderful people. I loved chatting with everyone, and it’s a really wonderful community that you guys have out there. And. So it’s wonderful to be a part of it.
Yeah. No, I, I, thanks again for coming out.
Thanks for making me have an epiphany. When it comes to craps, I talked about this on my, on my sports podcast that my, yeah, my, my craps strategy has now changed going forward. I think I say that knowing that, yes, I’ll still throw some place bets out there occasionally, but the majority. Of me betting numbers will not be place bets anymore, so thanks to you.
You explained. Well,
all I, all I did was give you the math. You know, all I did was give you the math, but sometimes I
wanna just dismiss the math because look, I know, but we know most of the bets on the craps table are a huge edge to the house. Huge edge, including the ones that I like to do, which are betting the bonus game and betting the hard ways, which is just like, just an absolute.
Awful bet to make. ’cause the house says, but
you hit the bonus game. Did you, does everyone know that, that you kept hitting the bonus game? Well, I hit the
weekend. I either hit the little ones or the big ones. Could never hit the boomer bus. Yeah, that’s true. All weekend long. Yeah. So yeah, while I hit the little ones or big ones, at least five or six times this trip, three or four of which I rolled myself, I just could never get the boomer bust and.
Yeah, that’s the big one because obviously that that pays really well based on what I put out there, but we all know it’s obviously a huge. It’s a sucker bet, essentially, just like the hard ways are. What, what was the house edge? What’s the house edge on hard ways again? Is it 14 to one or is that 12 to, what do we do?
It
depends on, it depends on which hard way, which one? I think some of ’em are 10 to one.
Yeah.
Some of ’em are 14 to one, but, but the most important takeaway, which I, which I said to you also is actually every dollar you put on the table in a casino, except taking the odds behind the pass line and the come line.
Are a sucker bet. Yeah. Because the house has a small edge on every single dollar you put down. Yeah.
So it’s just a
matter of knowing what you’re going there for. It’s, you’re going for fun. Not, not because this is gonna be, you know, the way that you, you know win all the money you need for your life.
It’s a, it’s a, a form of entertainment. Yeah. You know, nobody gets their money back after a Taylor Swift concert. You know, they’re fine to have parted with their money and had lots of fun, you know,
if. If the gambling games, no matter what game you play in Vegas, favored the customer. Vegas wouldn’t look like the way they do, they wouldn’t have 4,000 room hotels.
They, they wouldn’t be building and constantly bringing in money hand over fist every year. Like obviously we know, of course not. That’s why it’s called gambling. You’re, you’re taking a risk every time and yes, it favors the house. And for the most part, you’re gonna have most weekends that you go there, you’re probably going to lose.
It’s just the way it is. Yeah. But you’re there to have fun. And in my eyes, for me, my whole goal is just don’t get your ass kicked. And of
course
understand you’re probably going to lose, but you just don’t wanna lose badly. And that’s the way I look at every Vegas weekend when I go. I’ve had some winning weekends.
Yeah. I’ve actually walked after a weekend of four days of at the tables. I’m like, wow. I can win here. And those are the weekends that have me saying, oh, well of course I can go back. ’cause I have had a weekend, multiple weekends where I’ve won and I’m just like, yeah, that’s what keeps me going back because I know I can win.
But then when you have a streak of four or five, six trips in a row where you haven’t won, you’re just like, is it ever gonna happen for me again? So anyway I have a new system. I’ll put it in place when I’m there in September and we’ll see how, and we’ll see how that goes. So.
You’ll report
back. Yeah, I definitely will.
Rachel, thank you so much for coming on. Appreciate it. Have a great rest of the night and we’ll be in touch. You too. Bye. Thank you so much to Rachel for coming on as she was driving home from work yesterday. Just wanted to get that in and get the latest. Like I said, I don’t, I’m not staunch one way or another, but.
When I was checking social media yesterday, those were the responses that was showing up in my Twitter feed, and I don’t even know the people that were saying them and how much they’ve covered. I gotta believe people that have that hard of an opinion and are that upset. I, I mean, Rachel kind of put them in their place by saying, people who have that take and are thinking that, oh, Blake just won because she’s an Alister and she’s the power person in this quote unquote couple are, are missing the boat here, and they don’t know what they’re talking about.
So, but. I did see that was an overwhelming response. And unfortunately for the Baldon people, their, I don’t know, their tail is between their legs now because this was a huge loss. According to Rachel, maybe some others don’t think it was a huge loss. I’m sure if we asked David Ingris, he’d probably say, oh, no.
This was horrible for Lively, you know, ’cause he’s just wrong about everything he says. But no, I, I just don’t know enough about the case to say who’s winning and who’s losing. So that’s why I went to Rachel and she says this is a major, major loss for Justin Baldoni. And she’s surprised at the way the judge ruled on it.
But again, honestly for me, I don’t care either way. Who wins this case. I’m just not nearly as invested as others are. So anyway, thank you all for listening. I really appreciate it. Follow me on Apple Podcasts. Also rate and review, but you gotta hit play. It’s the only way it counts as a download. The Sports Daily posted is gonna post in an hour from now if you want to check that out again.
Thank you all for listening for Rachel Juarez. I’m reality Steve. Again, thanks for tuning in and I will talk to you tomorrow.
