Judge’s Ruling in Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s Legal Battle: Protecting Privacy

The judge overseeing Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal battle granted much of Lively’s request for an expanded protective order that aims to prevent some information, such as medical records and trade secrets related to future business projects, from being made public.
On Thursday, the judge said in his ruling that the court’s standard protective order would not be sufficient for the needs of Lively and Baldoni’s case, given the high-profile and sensitive nature of the case.
“These cases involve both business competitors and allegations of sexual harm,” the judge wrote, adding that discovery will unveil “confidential and sensitive business and personal information” and that the “risk of disclosure is great.”
Last month, Lively requested a heightened confidentiality agreement that would add more protections to prevent certain information from being leaked to the press. Lively’s attorneys had also cited in their February request to the judge privacy concerns relating to other high-profile third parties involved in the case.
“Several individuals and corporations on each side are in the business of public relations or media and have easy access to the press. The details of this case have been closely followed in the media, and each side has accused the other of litigating this case via the media,” the judge’s ruling added. “And where confidential information is not disclosed to the media, it may spread by gossip and innuendo to those in the tight artistic community in a position to do harm to one or the other of the parties but in a manner that might not be readily and immediately detected.”
The judge also said that medical information, security information and trade secret information pertaining to business and marketing plans for future projects would be marked as “attorneys’ eyes only,” meaning it will be protected information.
However, given the nature of a sexual harassment case,