Decide for Blake Vigorous-Justin Baldoni authorized battle denies Baldoni’s bid to depose Taylor Swift

• Taylor Swift will possible not be deposed in Blake Vigorous and Justin Baldoni's authorized battle.
• The choose within the case rejected Baldoni's request for a 30-day extension of the invention deadline, possible ending his try and depose Swift.
• Baldoni's lawyer had requested additional time to depose the singer, who he claimed was keen to seem for deposition, however her lawyer stated she didn’t comply with it.

Taylor Swift will has possible shaken off one other authorized headache.

A choose rejected It Ends With Us actor-director Justin Baldoni's request to increase the deposition deadline in his authorized battle with Blake Vigorous on Friday.

Baldoni's attorneys made the request with the intention to have extra time to depose the "Clean Area" singer, so the denial of their request implies that Swift has little likelihood of seeing a deposition sooner or later.

In a four-page memo saying his resolution, which Leisure Weekly has reviewed, Decide Lewis J. Liman defined his reasoning behind the ruling, noting that Baldoni's attorneys requested to increase the invention deadline on Thursday.

Liman wrote that Baldoni's workforce tried to justify their request by citing "Swift's preexisting skilled obligations" that "now stop her from being deposed inside the present discovery window" — that’s, the Oct. 3 launch of her subsequent album, The Lifetime of a Showgirl, implies that she gained't be out there to take part in a deposition till late October, whereas the present discovery deadline is Sept. 30.

Because of this, Baldoni's legal professionals — who’re additionally representing the filmmaker's firm Wayfarer Studios, which can also be listed as a defendant within the case — requested that the invention interval be prolonged to the top of October.

Baldoni's request got here in response to a earlier request from Vigorous's attorneys, who contend that they want 10 further days for discovery as a result of the Wayfarer workforce "belatedly produced giant numbers of paperwork and have failed to provide others," in response to the choose.

Decide Liman finally dominated in Vigorous's favor, granting her legal professionals' extension request and rejecting Baldoni's Swift-centered request for extra time.

"Vigorous has demonstrated good trigger for her requested extension," he wrote. "The Wayfarer Events have solely just lately produced sure further responsive paperwork — practically 80,000 pages in whole — and have failed to provide others solely."

Representatives for Swift, Baldoni, and Vigorous didn’t instantly reply to EW's request for remark.

Taylor Swift's hasn't agreed to deposition in Justin Baldoni-Blake Lively lawsuit. lawyers say A complete timeline of Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni's legal battle

The choose additionally defined his denial of Baldoni's request. "The Wayfarer Events haven’t equally demonstrated good trigger for his or her requested extension," he wrote. "The one justification they’ve supplied for the extension is their assertion that Swift’s preexisting skilled obligations now stop her from showing for a deposition previous to Oct. 20, 2025. Importantly, nevertheless, the Wayfarer Events have supplied no dialogue of after they started making an attempt to schedule the deposition."

Decide Liman additionally famous that Baldoni's workforce tried to subpoena Swift in Could, then withdrew their subpoena. "They’ve supplied no proof that they’ve served a renewed subpoena on Swift," he wrote. "Thus, at most, the Wayfarer Events have demonstrated that scheduling the deposition now presents logistical difficulties; that doesn’t reply the query of why the deposition 'couldn’t have been performed earlier.'"

On Thursday, Baldoni's lawyer Bryan Freedman claimed that Swift had "agreed to seem for deposition" within the case in his extension request.

Nevertheless, Swift's lawyer J. Douglas Baldridge pushed again towards that assertion, writing in a letter, "We have now constantly maintained that my shopper has no materials function on this motion. Additional, my shopper didn’t comply with a deposition, but when she is pressured right into a deposition, we suggested (after first listening to in regards to the deposition simply three days in the past) that her schedule would accommodate the time required through the week of Oct. 20 if the events have been in a position to work out their disputes. We take no function in these disputes."

In the meantime, Vigorous's lawyer Michael J. Gottlieb argued that the extension request from Baldoni's workforce got here as a part of an try and "gasoline their relentless media technique" and urged that "the Wayfarer Defendants don’t seem to have contacted Ms. Swift's counsel concerning a date or location in regards to the deposition till earlier this week." He additionally criticized the protection workforce for "lack of diligence, and disrespect for Ms. Swift's privateness and schedule."

Vigorous first filed a grievance towards Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Division in December, accusing the filmmaker of sexual harassment on the set of their latest film, It Ends With Us, in addition to coordinating a social media smear marketing campaign to tarnish her repute. She filed her lawsuit in New York shortly after, prompting Baldoni to reply along with his personal $400 million countersuit alleging defamation and extortion.

Baldoni additionally alleged that Swift and Vigorous's husband, Ryan Reynolds, put stress on him to just accept an It Ends With Us rewrite from Vigorous, who served as a producer on the movie.

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The Jane the Virgin star then subpoenaed Swift, prompting criticism from a spokesperson for the "Lover" singer. "Taylor Swift by no means set foot on the set of this film, she was not concerned in any casting or inventive selections, she didn’t rating the movie, she by no means noticed an edit or made any notes on the movie, [and] she didn’t even see It Ends With Us till weeks after its public launch," the spokesperson stated on the time.

"The connection Taylor needed to this movie was allowing using one tune, 'My Tears Ricochet,'" the spokesperson continued. "On condition that her involvement was licensing a tune for the movie, which 19 different artists additionally did, this doc subpoena is designed to make use of Taylor Swift's title to attract public curiosity by creating tabloid clickbait as a substitute of specializing in the details of the case."

Baldoni's workforce later withdrew the Swift subpoena, and Decide Liman subsequently threw out his countersuit in June.

The Vigorous-Baldoni case is scheduled to go to trial on March 9, 2026.

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