On August 8, 2025, Judge Lewis J. Liman of the Southern District of New York handed Blake Lively a procedural win and issued a pointed rebuke to the Wayfarer Parties and their lawyers by striking an entire 292-page uncertified deposition transcript from the court record. The judge’s order leaves only a narrow excerpt public and unseals the defense’s cover letter, finding the filing served “no proper litigation purpose” and appeared designed to fuel a public relations campaign, not advance the case.

The dispute began on August 1, 2025, when defense counsel Kevin Fritz, representing the Wayfarer Parties and the Liner Freedman firm, filed a letter opposing Lively’s efforts to enforce a subpoena against the firm. While the letter purported to address whether the subpoena was unduly burdensome or necessary, it went much further. The filing argued there was “no retaliatory smear campaign” against Lively, described her claims as “bogus,” predicted her defamation cause of action would “surely be dismissed,” and suggested she was “slowly realizing” her allegations lacked merit.

Embedded within this rhetoric was a procedural flashpoint: the attachment of Lively’s entire deposition transcript, all 292 pages of it, taken just the day before on July 31. The letter itself relied on only two pages of testimony (201:14–202:23), where Lively, questioned by Bryan Freedman, testified she believed the Wayfarer Parties had retaliated against her through litigation and press statements. By attaching the full transcript designated confidential under the protective order defense counsel triggered the court’s sealing procedures, forcing Lively to seek continued sealing of irrelevant portions or see them made public.

In her motion to strike, Lively argued there was “no conceivable legal purpose” for filing the entire transcript. She contended the move was strategic: compel her to fight over sealing, then spin any sealing request as fear of her own testimony. She characterized it as a PR maneuver aimed at creating a false public narrative.

Judge Liman agreed. Citing Dietz v. Bouldin, Brown v. Maxwell, and Nixon v. Warner Communications, he reaffirmed the court’s inherent authority to control its docket and prevent filings that are “abusive or otherwise improper” or that co-opt the judicial process to “gratify private spite or promote public scandal.” While Rule 12(f) applies only to pleadings, the judge made clear he can and will strike other documents when filed for improper purposes.

The court found that attaching the full transcript when only two pages were relevant to the subpoena dispute — served no proper litigation purpose and instead appeared intended to burden Lively, the court, and invite public speculation. In a footnote, he noted this was part of a pattern in which the Wayfarer Parties used court filings to litigate in the press, referencing earlier instances where similar conduct had prompted the court to strike or disregard submissions designed to “invite a press uproar.”

The outcome was surgical:

• The August 1 letter is now unsealed in full.
• The complete transcript is stricken from the docket.
• Only the narrow excerpt actually cited remains public.

In a separate order issued the same day, Judge Liman also warned all parties — represented or not — against using disrespectful language in filings, cautioning that demeaning nicknames or accusations of judicial bias could lead to contempt.

This ruling underscores two points about high-profile litigation. First, the courtroom is not an extension of a press office; filings must serve legitimate legal purposes, not narrative control in the media. Second, federal judges have both the authority and the responsibility to police their dockets, particularly when one side’s tactics threaten to turn legal proceedings into public spectacle.