Well, this is unexpected! Justin Baldoni‘s hardcore lawyer Bryan Freedman — who is representing him in his case against Blake Lively — once sued him!
According to court documents obtained by Us Weekly and other outlets on Wednesday, Bryan and Justin have actually battled it out before when the attorney represented a client who sued the director for alleged copyright infringement and breach of contract!
The client was Travis Flores, who had cystic fibrosis and passed away in May 2024 at the age of 33 due to complications from the illness. He sued the Jane the Virgin alum and other defendants in September 2021, arguing that Justin’s 2019 directorial debut, Five Feet Apart, ripped off his own romance script Three Feet Distance.
Related: Colleen Hoover Deactivates IG Amid Blake & Justin Lawsuit!
The legal paperwork declared:
“Flores kept his screenplay from Baldoni both because Flores had a policy of keeping his work confidential and because Baldoni was working on the feature film project that Flores viewed as competitive.”
Apparently, Three Feet Distance had been in development at a Universal-affiliated production company in 2015. Despite trying to keep it away from Justin, he allegedly got his hands on the material anyway, the screenwriter argued:
“Unbeknownst to Flores, however, Baldoni already had a different source to provide him with information about Three Feet Distance. As it turned out, Baldoni’s film — which became titled Five Feet Apart — would copy numerous elements of Three Feet Distance.”
Travis argued that there were tons of similarities with the scripts — including the titles. He also accused Justin of stealing specific plot elements, characters, and themes, such as the fact that both protagonists had dead sisters and that the movies both had a message of the importance of “living in the here and now.”
In 2016, Justin also asked Travis to be a part of his documentary series My Last Days, which told the stories of several young people suffering from terminal illnesses. Five Feet Apart was later dedicated to another participant of the doc, the late YouTube star Claire Wineland, who had a big part in the production of the film, which was based on a book of the same name by authors Rachael Lippincott, Mikki Daughtry, and Tobias Iaconis.
In March 2022, the lawsuit was dismissed by a federal court in LA, per Bloomberg Law. According to The Hollywood Reporter, they reached a settlement but the details were not made public. Justin never commented on the legal matter.
Seems like a wild choice to hire a lawyer that previously went after you, but Bryan is known to be very good at what he does. Justin must’ve seen that firsthand and knew he needed him on his side in this fight. Crazy!
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[Image via MEGA/WENN & CBS Films/YouTube]
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