Professional Documents
Culture Documents
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SUPERIOR COURT OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA
14 COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES, CENTRAL DISTRICT
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2 LLC (collectively, “Plaintiffs”) hereby submit the following Separate Statement in support of their
3 Motion to Compel Further Responses and Production of Documents from Defendant Angelina
4 Jolie (the “Motion”) in connection with Plaintiffs’ Second Set of Requests for Production (the
5 “Requests”).
9 In addition to the general objections, Jolie objects to this request on the following grounds:
10 (a) the request is overbroad as any non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements other than
11 those between Jolie and Pitt entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their
12 children have no relevance to this case; (b) the request seeks documents protected from disclosure
13 by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine; and (c) for the parties to any such
14 agreements, the request seeks documents protected from disclosure by their rights of privacy under
16 Subject to the foregoing general and specific objections, Jolie responds as follows: Jolie
17 will produce any non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements between Jolie and Pitt,
18 entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children, regarding their
19 personal conduct.
22 The defined term “YOU” refers here to the Defendant, Angelina Jolie. The sole question
23 before the Court in connection with this Request, therefore, is whether Jolie’s non-disclosure
24 and/or non-disparagement agreements with third parties are relevant or likely to lead to the
26
1
Jolie did not object and has not contended that it would be unduly burdensome to produce these
27
documents. Nor has she proffered any evidence of the “quantum of work required” to make such
28 a production as required to sustain such an objection. See Williams v. Superior Court, 3 Cal. 5th
2
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Jolie—not Pitt—places an oversized emphasis on the importance of non-disparagement
2 clauses in this lawsuit. For example, to rationalize her wrongful refusal to sell her indirect interest
3 in Château Miraval to Pitt, Jolie alleges that “the deal [for Pitt to purchase her stake in Château
4 Miraval] fell apart because Pitt demanded Jolie agree to a non-disparagement clause covering his
5 personal conduct as a condition of his purchase of the winery.” X-C ¶ 39. Jolie asserts that this
6 issue “goes to the very heart of this case,” and she seeks a declaratory judgment that Pitt’s request
7 rendered “unconscionable, void, and against public policy” the former couple’s implied-in-fact
8 contract providing that each of them would have a consent right over any sale to a third party. Id.
9 ¶¶ 39, 42(c). Jolie also recently filed her own Motion to Compel in which she claims that Pitt and
10 his winemaker partner Perrin’s suggested non-disclosure provision was “cruel,” “hurtful,” caused
11 her to “nearly shutdown,” and was the reason she terminated her negotiations to sell her indirect
12 interest in the winery to Pitt. Pitt, for his part, asserts that these claims are pretextual.
13 To probe the veracity of this NDA defense at “the very heart of” Jolie’s case, Pitt served
14 this Request seeking NDAs to which Jolie is herself a party. These documents are probative of
15 whether Jolie actually viewed the provision requested by Pitt and Perrin as an “abusive and
16 controlling deal-breaker” that released her of any contractual obligations to Pitt. Jolie,
17 unsurprisingly, wants to shield these documents from discovery, and therefore agreed to produce
18 only those NDAs, if any, between Jolie and Pitt themselves.2 Jolie adamantly refuses to produce
19 other NDAs that she willingly entered into during the relevant time period, presumably because
21 If Jolie willingly entered into similar or more restrictive NDAs with third parties, for
22
23 531, 549 (2017) (“[T]he party opposing discovery has an obligation to supply the basis for this
determination. An ‘objection based upon burden must be sustained by evidence showing the
24 quantum of work required.’”). Further, Jolie’s boilerplate objections that the Request calls for
information protected by the attorney/client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or
25 the right to privacy might justify redacting or withholding certain documents—but these
objections cannot justify her flat refusal to produce responsive documents.
26
2
In the meet-and-confer process preceding this Motion, Jolie agreed to produce documents
27
concerning “NDAs discussed or entered” and/or “entered or proposed between Mr. Pitt and
28 Ms. Jolie.” Ex. 4 at 1–2 (emphases added); see also Ex. 6 at 1–2.
3
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 example, that would cast serious doubt on her claim that she viewed Pitt’s request as so
2 unconscionable that it caused her to crater a $50+ million transaction that she was poised to enter
3 after months of negotiations. Documents showing the types of provisions that Jolie did not find to
4 be unconscionable (and the reasons why she found them acceptable) are therefore relevant (or, at
5 minimum, likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence) and should be produced. That
6 such documents exist is hardly speculative; Jolie herself proposed an even broader NDA to Pitt in
7 connection with their family litigation six months after Pitt and Perrin proposed the NDA that
8 Jolie now alleges caused her to “nearly shutdown” and pull out of the deal. See SAC ¶ 88.
9 Jolie nonetheless bases her objection on her alleged subjective belief that the non-
10 disparagement provision requested by Pitt was uniquely objectionable because it would have
11 covered (broadly speaking) the details of the parties’ relationship. But this argument goes to the
12 probative weight of the documents requested, not the relevance, and accordingly has no place at
13 the discovery phase. Nor is the Request overbroad or excessive. Rather, it is laser-focused on the
14 NDAs themselves, a narrow set of documents that are readily available to Jolie.
15 The Request is reasonably calculated to lead to discovery of documents that will test
16 whether Jolie was truly so offended by the proposed NDA and her claim that she was entitled to
17 breach her contract with Pitt and improperly sell to the Stoli Parties, or whether (as Pitt believes
18 these documents will help show) her defense is pure pretext. “That is enough to justify
19 discovery.” Lipton v. Superior Ct., 48 Cal. App. 4th 1599, 1616 (1996).
22 As the moving party seeking to compel the production of documents, Pitt has the burden to
23 make a “fact-specific showing of relevance” concerning the documents he seeks. Glenfed Dev.
24 Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1117 (1997). In RFP No. 1, Pitt seeks to compel
25 the production of over 16 years’ worth of contracts to which Jolie was a party where the contract
28 matters unrelated to this lawsuit somehow test Jolie’s credibility because Jolie asserts that Pitt’s
4
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 agreement to buy her interest in Miraval fell apart when she refused Pitt’s demand for an NDA to
2 cover Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children.
3 But Pitt’s argument is a non-sequitur. Its most obvious problem is that it attempts to equate
4 NDAs Jolie entered that do not cover Pitt’s abuse of their family with the NDA Pitt himself
5 demanded to cover-up his own abuse of Jolie and their children. There is no connection between
6 them at all—none. For this reason, these other NDAs do not probe Jolie’s veracity regarding the
7 impact of Pitt’s proposed NDA in any way. And contrary to Pitt’s suggestion, Jolie does not
8 contend in her Cross-Complaint that all NDAs are bad or problematic, and she does not seek such
9 a blanket ruling in this case. To the contrary, Jolie was at all times agreeable to the original NDA
10 Pitt proposed that was limited to the winery. It was only after Pitt changed the language to cover
11 his personal abuse of the family that Jolie objected. Indeed, there is a stark difference between an
12 NDA Jolie signed with a movie studio or an employee, and the last-minute, expanded NDA her
13 abusive ex-husband tried to force her to sign to bury his criminal conduct.
14 Pitt’s related argument that Jolie asking others to enter NDAs covering aspects of her
15 private life is probative of Pitt asking Jolie to be silent about criminal conduct he committed is a
16 false equivalence. If Jolie hired someone to prepare meals for her family inside her home and
17 asked that person to enter an NDA so the person would not disclose to the tabloids what her
18 family ate every day (Motion at 14), that particular NDA has no relevance to how Jolie felt when
19 Pitt asked her to sign an NDA silencing her from speaking about her own life and the painful
21 Pitt’s request for the documents fails for other reasons as well. The law is clear that “courts
22 shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that
23 discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of
24 admissible evidence.” C.C.P. § 2017.020. Here, the burden, expense, and intrusiveness of Jolie
25 having to gather and produce nearly two decades of contracts clearly outweighs the likelihood that
26 the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Moreover, if the Court
27 concludes that the evidence is relevant and admissible, this will then result in a series of mini-trials
28 for each and every contract Pitt hopes to use. The Court is never going to allow such mini-trials.
5
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 As a result, the documents are not only irrelevant, but they are also not likely to lead to the
3 In fact, Pitt’s use of these documents at trial will be separately barred by Evidence Code
4 sections 786, 787 and 1101(a) because this is improper character evidence. Section 786 states that
5 evidence “of traits of his character other than honesty or veracity, or their opposites, is
6 inadmissible to attack or support the credibility of a witness.” Section 787 states that, aside from
7 prior felony convictions, “Evidence of specific instances of his conduct relevant only as tending to
8 prove a trait of his character is inadmissible to attack or support the credibility of a witness.” And
9 Section 1101(a) states that “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character
10 (whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of reputation, or evidence of specific instances of his
11 or her conduct) is inadmissible when offered to prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.”
12 Pitt’s theory is barred by each of these sections of the Evidence Code. He will not be able to use
13 prior instances of Jolie’s conduct (entering other NDAs with other people about other matters) to
14 prove that she should have been fine with agreeing to his abusive NDA too.
15 Further, Pitt’s request is also overbroad as to time and scope. It seeks all NDAs Jolie
16 entered from January 1, 2007 through the present, but Jolie contends the NDA Pitt proposed was
17 problematic because it attempted to bury Pitt’s abuse. There is no relevance to contracts she
18 entered into with other people about issues unrelated to the abuse. At best, Pitt is entitled to any
19 NDAs Jolie entered with Pitt, which Jolie has agreed to give. Anything else is overbroad as to
21 Pitt’s demand for nearly two decades worth of contracts also intrudes on Jolie’s right of
22 privacy. When assessing a claimed privacy right, the “privacy interests [must] be specifically
23 identified and carefully comparted with competing or countervailing privacy and nonprivacy
24 interests in a balancing test.” Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 7 Cal.4th 37-38 (1994). As a
25 starting point, courts must first “place the burden on the party asserting a privacy interest to
26 establish its extent and seriousness of the prospective invasion, and against that showing must
27 weigh the countervailing interest the opposing party identifies.” Williams v. Superior Court, 3
28 Cal.5th 531, 557 (2017). “In weighing the privacy interests of the third party, the trial court should
6
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 consider the nature of the information sought, its inherent intrusiveness, and any specific showing
2 for a need for privacy, including any harm that disclosure of the information might cause.” In re
4 Here, most, if not all, of these agreements will be employment-related contracts that
5 include Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties. These third parties have
6 their own privacy rights. Pitt has not even offered to give any form of notice whatsoever to these
7 third-parties to allow them the opportunity to protect their rights, nor does he acknowledge that
8 these other persons and entities have privacy rights here. Against this sensitive information, Pitt
9 has little countervailing interest in obtaining these documents. Moreover, any negligible relevance
10 is greatly outweighed by Pitt’s intrusion into Jolie’s and these third parties’ privacy rights, with
11 the balance in favor of protecting privacy rights—made all the more problematic by the fact that
13 Pitt wants to argue that because Jolie entered NDAs with other people, she could not have
14 been bothered by the NDA Pitt demanded she sign. But each and every one of these other NDAs
15 involve separate people, different interests, and unique facts. None will involve NDAs that
16 prohibit Jolie from speaking about Pitt’s abuse of her and their children. Forcing Jolie to spend the
17 time and expense of gathering and producing all of this documentation is expensive, wasteful, and
18 unreasonable—and the latest manifestation of Pitt’s abusive conduct toward Jolie. The Court
22 Jolie argues that the Request seeks information about NDAs with “other people and
23 entities, about other matters not in any way connected with” the allegations she has made against
24 Pitt, which thus are not “comparable” to the proposed Pitt NDA and are therefore categorically
25 irrelevant. Opp. at 5. She also argues that even if the documents sought are relevant, it would be
26 improper to order production because “[b]y their nature,” the Request “seriously invade[s] Jolie’s
27 privacy and the privacy rights of third parties.” Opp. at 17. Her arguments fail for at least the
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 following reasons.3
2 First, Jolie’s overly narrow relevance framing is not supported by any evidence. Jolie
3 admits that she possesses responsive NDAs with “studios, sponsors, service professionals,
4 employees, and independent contractors (among others) over nearly two decades of [her] career.”
5 Opp. at 14. But Jolie offers nothing to back up her argument that there is a “stark and obvious
6 contrast” between these NDAs and the NDA proposed by Pitt and Perrin, on which her defense
7 hinges—no declaration, no information about the terms of these other NDAs, no description of the
8 “others” with whom she has entered into NDAs, and no evidence of what type of conduct these
9 NDAs covered. This is insufficient to meet Jolie’s burden to “justify [her] objection” following
10 the “fact-specific showing of relevance” made by Pitt in his Motion. Kirkland v. Sup. Ct., 95 Cal.
12 In fact, the limited information currently available to Pitt squarely contradicts Jolie’s
13 position that her use of NDAs is not “remotely comparable” to her allegations that “Pitt was
14 attempting to leverage his purchase of Miraval into silencing Jolie.” Opp. at 15. For example, the
15 concurrently filed Declaration of Tony Webb (“Webb Decl.”) reveals that Jolie is the one who has
16 weaponized NDAs in an effort to prevent an open airing of the couple’s family issues—the very
17 thing that Jolie claims was so sacred to her that Pitt’s proposed NDA caused her to renege on her
18 deal to sell to him. See Webb Decl. ¶¶ 2, 4–9 (averring that after the couple divorced and went to
19 family court, Mr. Webb received multiple calls from Jolie’s representative, who told Mr. Webb to
20 remind his staff that they had entered into NDAs with Jolie and that if they testified in a custody
21 proceeding, Jolie would sue them—and after they did so, Jolie fired Mr. Webb’s company).
22 Jolie’s use of NDAs to silence her security detail and attempt to prevent them from
23 testifying truthfully in court about what actually happened behind closed doors bears a striking
24 resemblance to Jolie’s (false) allegations in this case that Pitt improperly used an NDA to
25
3
Jolie’s lip-service arguments as to burden are waived and should be wholly disregarded because
26 she never objected to the Request on the ground that searching for responsive documents would
impose a burden, and she has not provided any “evidence showing the quantum of work required”
27
to search for the documents, as required to sustain a burden objection even if one existed.
28 Williams v. Sup. Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 549 (2017) (emphasis added).
8
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 “silenc[e]” her. Yet, without presenting any evidence, Jolie asks this Court to find that “[t]here is
2 no connection between them at all—none,” Opp. SSUF at 4, and in doing so, deny Pitt’s Motion.
3 This unsupported and clearly incorrect conclusion is not credible, and Pitt should be entitled to
4 obtain the additional evidence at issue here to further undermine Jolie’s NDA defense.
5 Second, whether this discovery ultimately makes it more likely or less likely that Jolie is
6 telling the truth about why she abandoned the sale of her interest in Miraval to Pitt is not a
7 determination to be made on a motion to compel—because either way, the NDAs and related
8 documents at issue here are likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence about that
9 disputed issue. Under California’s broad discovery standards, the documents and information
10 sought by this Motion are relevant and therefore discoverable because they have “any tendency in
11 reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the
12 action.” Evid. Code § 210; Lipton v. Superior Ct., 48 Cal. App. 4th 1599, 1612 (1996) (“The
14 More specifically, if Jolie intends to rely on the proposed NDA as a defense to the breach
15 of her obligations and her decision to abandon the transaction she and Pitt had been negotiating,
16 that is an ultimate question for the finder of fact to decide based on its own assessments and
17 conclusions (assuming arguendo that Jolie’s defense is legally viable at all). City of King City v.
18 Cmty. Bank of Cent. California, 131 Cal. App. 4th 913, 936 (“Any evidence refuting [party’s]
19 claims as pleaded was not only material, but potentially dispositive—and eminently
21 important to Pitt—and an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie—goes to the very heart of
22 this case.”); Opp. at 5:6–8 (“[W]hat happened in the intervening months” between February and
23 June 15, 2021 “is hotly disputed,” and “[a]t trial, the jury will have to resolve this important
24 factual dispute.”). And for Pitt to present this additional evidence to the ultimate finder of fact, he,
26 Third, Jolie’s blanket “nothing is comparable” argument has been rejected in several
27 analogous cases. E.g., Davies v. Superior Ct., 36 Cal. 3d 291, 301 (1984) (state records
28 concerning other accidents on a highway that accident victim contended was dangerous are
9
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 “relevant to the subject matter of a lawsuit arising out of another accident at the same location, and
2 may aid in the parties’ preparation for trial,” notwithstanding state’s “extraordinary” argument to
3 the contrary); Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Superior Ct., 31 Cal. 3d 785, 790–91 (1982)
4 (because plaintiff could establish a claim by showing that the acts at issue were a general business
5 practice, “[d]iscovery aimed at determining the frequency of alleged unfair settlement practices is
6 therefore likely to produce evidence directly relevant to the action,” notwithstanding the insurer’s
7 “patently meritless” objections); Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of New York, Inc., 246
8 Cal. App. 4th 566, 593 (2016) (“[T]he fact that the other . . . incidents may have been different
9 from the one that allegedly occurred here does not mean the other perpetrator evidence was not
10 discoverable.”). In other words, because the documents deal with a subject of consequence to the
11 determination of the action, and one which Jolie herself has injected into the matter, the question
12 of “comparability” is not for Jolie to decide, and Jolie’s subjective position on the issue should not
14 In short, establishing that NDAs are a commonplace feature of Jolie’s personal and
15 professional life, and entirely routine for her, goes directly to the credibility of her defense—
16 regardless of the precise terms or subject matter of any one particular NDA.
17 Fourth, Jolie’s argument that “specific past instances of Jolie’s conduct to prove her
18 conduct on this occasion is . . . barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787, and 1101(a)[,]” (Opp.
19 at 18 n.2), misses the mark. None of those provisions are applicable here—section 786 deals only
20 with “[e]vidence of traits of [] character,” section 787 deals only with “evidence of specific
21 instances of [] conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of [] character,” and section
22 1101(a) deals only with “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character.” Jolie’s
23 use of NDAs plainly is not evidence of her “propensity or tendency to act in a certain way under
24 certain circumstances.” Cal. Prac. Guide Civ. Trials & Ev. Ch. 8E-E (emphasis original); cf.
25 Evid. Code § 1105 (evidence of a person’s “habit or custom” is admissible). The evidence sought
26 here goes to the merits of Jolie’s factual contention that she viewed Pitt and Perrin’s request for an
27 NDA as “an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie,” X-C ¶ 39, not her character.
28 Fifth and finally, Jolie cannot meet her burden to “establish a legally protected privacy
10
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 interest, an objectively reasonable expectation of privacy in the given circumstances, and a
2 threatened intrusion that is serious,” Williams v. Superior Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 552 (2017),
3 particularly given that the operative Protective Order in this case allows her to designate the
4 information as confidential and thereby avoid its improper distribution or filing to the public
5 docket, see Alch v. Superior Ct., 165 Cal. App. 4th 1412, 1432 (2008). Jolie has not offered any
6 declaration or actual evidence concerning what information exists in these NDAs, let alone
7 “specifically identified” a constitutionally protected privacy interest for herself or for third parties,
8 as she is required to do in the first instance. Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Assn., 7 Cal. 4th 1, 37
9 (1994). And as for Jolie’s claim for the first time in Opposition that the NDAs may “include
10 Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties,” Opp. at 17, Jolie does not cite a
11 single case showing that she (or the third parties) have a privacy right to such information—which
12 is routinely produced in commercial disputes, which would here be subject to a strict protective
13 order, and which Jolie could have asked during the parties’ meet-and-confer negotiations to
15 Further, even if Jolie had satisfied her burden to establish that the requested documents
16 contain information that would pose a serious intrusion upon legally recognized privacy rights if
17 produced pursuant to the operative Protective Order—and she did not—Jolie would also have to
18 “show[] that the [documents] cannot successfully be redacted” to eliminate that risk of “serious”
19 invasion. Snibbe v. Superior Ct., 224 Cal. App. 4th 184, 194–96 (2014); Overstock.com, Inc. v.
20 Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc., 231 Cal. App. 4th 471, 508 (2014) (approving of redaction to protect
21 privacy rights). Jolie has not even tried to do this—indeed, when Plaintiffs suggested during
22 meet-and-confer negotiations that Jolie may redact personally identifying information of third
23 parties (at least in the first instance, and then the parties can meet and confer, if necessary, about
24 such redactions), Jolie rejected that offer too. See Cherlow Decl., Ex. 5 at 2, n.1; id. Ex. 6 at 1.
25 Because Jolie has not “specifically identified” a “serious invasion” of privacy rights at
26 stake, let alone explained why redactions and the protective order would not resolve any concern,
27 she cannot withhold the documents based on privacy rights either. Hill, 7 Cal. 4th at 37; Snibbe,
28 224 Cal. App. 4th at 194–96; Alch, 165 Cal. App. 4th at 1427.
11
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 2:
5 In addition to the general objections, Jolie objects to this request on the following grounds:
6 (a) the use of the term “concerning,” standing alone and as defined by Plaintiffs, renders the
7 request grossly overbroad in time and scope; (b) the request is overbroad as any non-disclosure
8 and non-disparagement agreements other than those between Jolie and Pitt entered after Pitt’s
9 physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children have no relevance to this case; (c) the
10 request seeks documents protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege, the work
11 product doctrine; and (d) for the parties to any such agreements, the request seeks documents
12 protected from disclosure by their rights of privacy under the Constitution of the State of
13 California.
14 Subject to the foregoing general and specific objections, Jolie responds as follows: Jolie
15 will produce any non-privileged documents and communications discussing or referencing Jolie’s
16 reasons for entering into non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements between Jolie and Pitt,
17 entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children, regarding their
18 personal conduct.4
21 As an initial matter, Jolie objects that the defined term “CONCERNING” renders this
22 Request grossly overbroad in time and scope. For the avoidance of doubt, this Request seeks only
23 documents that set forth or explicitly reference Jolie’s reasons for entering or agreeing to NDAs
24 during the same time period for which she has agreed to produce documents in response to other
25 requests—not all documents that could conceivably relate to her thought process at the time, let
26
4
In the meet-and-confer process preceding this Motion, Jolie agreed to produce documents
27
concerning “NDAs discussed or entered” and/or “entered or proposed between Mr. Pitt and
28 Ms. Jolie.” Ex. 4 at 1–2 (emphases added); see also Ex. 6 at 1–2.
12
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 alone those concerning the underlying facts or events that may be covered by the NDAs.
2 The defined term “YOU” refers here to the Defendant, Angelina Jolie. The sole question
3 before the Court in connection with this Request, therefore, is whether Jolie’s non-disclosure
4 and/or non-disparagement agreements with third parties are relevant or likely to lead to the
7 clauses in this lawsuit. For example, to rationalize her wrongful refusal to sell her indirect interest
8 in Château Miraval to Pitt, Jolie alleges that “the deal [for Pitt to purchase her stake in Château
9 Miraval] fell apart because Pitt demanded Jolie agree to a non-disparagement clause covering his
10 personal conduct as a condition of his purchase of the winery.” X-C ¶ 39. Jolie asserts that this
11 issue “goes to the very heart of this case,” and she seeks a declaratory judgment that Pitt’s request
12 rendered “unconscionable, void, and against public policy” the former couple’s implied-in-fact
13 contract providing that each of them would have a consent right over any sale to a third party. Id.
14 ¶¶ 39, 42(c). Jolie also recently filed her own Motion to Compel in which she claims that Pitt and
15 his winemaker partner Perrin’s suggested non-disclosure provision was “cruel,” “hurtful,” caused
16 her to “nearly shutdown,” and was the reason she terminated her negotiations to sell her indirect
17 interest in the winery to Pitt. Pitt, for his part, asserts that these claims are pretextual.
18 To probe the veracity of this NDA defense at “the very heart of” Jolie’s case, Pitt served
19 this Request seeking those documents setting forth or referring to the reasons why Jolie agreed to
20 enter into NDAs with third parties. These documents are probative of whether Jolie actually
21 viewed the provision requested by Pitt and Perrin as an “abusive and controlling deal-breaker” that
22
23 5
Jolie did not object and has not contended that it would be unduly burdensome to produce these
24 documents. Nor has she proffered any evidence of the “quantum of work required” to make such
a production as required to sustain such an objection. See Williams, 3 Cal. 5th at 549 (“[T]he
25 party opposing discovery has an obligation to supply the basis for this determination. An
‘objection based upon burden must be sustained by evidence showing the quantum of work
26 required.’”). Further, Jolie’s boilerplate objections that the Request calls for information protected
by the attorney/client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or the right to privacy
27
might justify redacting or withholding certain documents—but these objections cannot justify her
28 flat refusal to produce responsive documents.
13
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 released her of any contractual obligations to Pitt. Jolie unsurprisingly wants to shield these
2 documents from discovery, and therefore agreed to produce only those NDAs, if any, between
3 Jolie and Pitt themselves.6 Jolie adamantly refuses to produce other NDAs that she willingly
4 entered into during the relevant time period, presumably because she knows they will severely
5 undermine her defenses. Specifically, these documents are probative of Jolie’s views about the
6 many legitimate reasons for entering into NDAs—for instance, to avoid negative publicity that
7 could harm a business (i.e., the very reason that Pitt pleads he and Perrin sought the non-
8 disparagement provisions at issue here). Evidence that Jolie entered into NDAs covering similar
9 subjects for similar reasons as Pitt would, among other things, undermine her contention that Pitt’s
11 a defense that is legally deficient in any event, but which Jolie submits is at “the very heart of the
13 Jolie nonetheless bases her objection on her alleged subjective belief that the non-
14 disparagement provision requested by Pitt was uniquely objectionable because it would have
15 covered (broadly speaking) the details of the parties’ relationship. But this argument goes to the
16 probative weight of the documents requested, not the relevance, and accordingly has no place at
17 the discovery phase. Nor is the Request overbroad or excessive. Rather, it is laser-focused on the
18 NDAs themselves, a narrow set of documents that are readily available to Jolie.
19 The Request is reasonably calculated to lead to discovery of documents that will test
20 whether Jolie was truly so offended by the proposed NDA and her claim that she was entitled to
21 breach her contract with Pitt and improperly sell to the Stoli Parties, or whether (as Pitt believes
22 these documents will help show) her defense is pure pretext. “That is enough to justify
24
25
26
6
In the meet-and-confer process preceding this Motion, Jolie agreed to produce documents
27
concerning “NDAs discussed or entered” and/or “entered or proposed between Mr. Pitt and
28 Ms. Jolie.” Ex. 4 at 1–2 (emphases added); see also Ex. 6 at 1–2.
14
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 JOLIE’S RESPONSE TO PLAINTIFFS’ FACTUAL AND LEGAL REASONS FOR
3 As the moving party seeking to compel the production of documents, Pitt has the burden to
4 make a “fact-specific showing of relevance” concerning the documents he seeks. Glenfed Dev.
5 Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1117 (1997). In RFP No. 2, Pitt seeks to compel
6 the production of over 16 years’ worth of “documents and communications” about contracts to
7 which Jolie was a party where the contract includes an NDA—specifically demanding every
8 “document and communication” reflecting the reason why she considered or entered an NDA with
9 any person over this time period. According to Pitt, these other NDAs with other people about
10 other matters unrelated to this lawsuit somehow test Jolie’s credibility because Jolie asserts that
11 Pitt’s agreement to buy her interest in Miraval fell apart when she refused Pitt’s demand for an
12 NDA to cover Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children.
13 But Pitt’s argument is a non-sequitur. Its most obvious problem is that it attempts to equate
14 NDAs Jolie entered that do not cover Pitt’s abuse of their family with the NDA Pitt himself
15 demanded to cover-up his own abuse of Jolie and their children. There is no connection between
16 them at all—none. For this reason, these other NDAs do not probe Jolie’s veracity regarding the
17 impact of Pitt’s proposed NDA in any way. And contrary to Pitt’s suggestion, Jolie does not
18 contend in her Cross-Complaint that all NDAs are bad or problematic, and she does not seek such
19 a blanket ruling in this case. To the contrary, Jolie was at all times agreeable to the original NDA
20 Pitt proposed that was limited to the winery. It was only after Pitt changed the language to cover
21 his personal abuse of the family that Jolie objected. Indeed, there is a stark difference between an
22 NDA Jolie signed with a movie studio or an employee, and the last-minute, expanded NDA her
23 abusive ex-husband tried to force her to sign to bury his criminal conduct.
24 Pitt’s related argument that Jolie asking others to enter NDAs covering aspects of her
25 private life is probative of Pitt asking Jolie to be silent about criminal conduct he committed is a
26 false equivalence. If Jolie hired someone to prepare meals for her family inside her home and
27 asked that person to enter an NDA so the person would not disclose to the tabloids what her
28 family ate every day (Motion at 14), that particular NDA has no relevance to how Jolie felt when
15
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Pitt asked her to sign an NDA silencing her from speaking about her own life and the painful
3 Pitt’s request for the documents fails for other reasons as well. The law is clear that “courts
4 shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that
5 discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of
6 admissible evidence.” C.C.P. § 2017.020. Here, the burden, expense, and intrusiveness of Jolie
7 having to gather and produce nearly two decades of “documents and communications” relating to
8 these other NDAs clearly outweighs clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought
9 will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Moreover, if the Court concludes that the
10 evidence is relevant and admissible, this will then result in a series of mini-trials for each and
11 every contract Pitt hopes to use. The Court is never going to allow such mini-trials. As a result, the
12 documents are not only irrelevant, but they are also not likely to lead to the discovery of
13 admissible evidence.
14 In fact, Pitt’s proposed argument is going to be barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787
15 and 1101(a). Section 786 states that evidence “of traits of his character other than honesty or
17 Section 787 states that, aside from prior felony convictions, “Evidence of specific instances of his
18 conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of his character is inadmissible to attack or
19 support the credibility of a witness.” And Section 1101(a) states that “evidence of a person’s
20 character or a trait of his or her character (whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of
21 reputation, or evidence of specific instances of his or her conduct) is inadmissible when offered to
22 prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.” Pitt’s theory is barred by each of these sections
23 of the Evidence Code. He will not be able to use prior instances of Jolie’s conduct (entering other
24 NDAs with other people about other matters) to prove that she should have been fine with
26 Further, Pitt’s request is also overbroad as to time and scope. It seeks all “documents and
27 communications” about all NDAs Jolie entered from January 1, 2007 through the present, but
28 Jolie contends the NDA Pitt proposed was problematic because it attempted to bury Pitt’s abuse.
16
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 There is no relevance to contracts she entered into with other people about issues unrelated to the
2 abuse. At best, Pitt is entitled to any NDAs Jolie entered with Pitt, which Jolie has agreed to give.
4 Pitt’s demand for nearly two decades worth of contracts also intrudes on Jolie’s right of
5 privacy. When assessing a claimed privacy right, the “privacy interests [must] be specifically
6 identified and carefully comparted with competing or countervailing privacy and nonprivacy
7 interests in a balancing test.” Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 7 Cal.4th 37-38 (1994). As a
8 starting point, courts must first “place the burden on the party asserting a privacy interest to
9 establish its extent and seriousness of the prospective invasion, and against that showing must
10 weigh the countervailing interest the opposing party identifies.” Williams v. Superior Court, 3
11 Cal.5th 531, 557 (2017). “In weighing the privacy interests of the third party, the trial court should
12 consider the nature of the information sought, its inherent intrusiveness, and any specific showing
13 for a need for privacy, including any harm that disclosure of the information might cause.” In re
15 Here, most, if not all, of these documents and communications will concern employment-
16 related contracts that include Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties. These
17 third parties have their own privacy rights. Pitt has not even offered to give any form of notice
18 whatsoever to these third-parties to allow them the opportunity to protect their rights, nor does he
19 acknowledge that these other persons and entities have privacy rights here.
20 Against this sensitive information, Pitt has little countervailing interest in obtaining these
21 documents. Moreover, any negligible relevance is greatly outweighed by Pitt’s intrusion into
22 Jolie’s and these third parties’ privacy rights, with the balance in favor of protecting privacy
23 rights—made all the more problematic by the fact that such evidence has virtually no chance of
25 Pitt wants to argue that because Jolie entered NDAs with other people, she could not have
26 been bothered by the NDA Pitt demanded she sign. But each and every one of these other NDAs
27 involve separate people, different interests, and unique facts. None will involve NDAs that
28 prohibit Jolie from speaking about Pitt’s abuse of her and their children. Forcing Jolie to spend the
17
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 time and expense of gathering and producing all of this documentation is expensive, wasteful, and
2 unreasonable—and the latest manifestation of Pitt’s abusive conduct toward Jolie. The Court
6 Jolie argues that the Request seeks information about NDAs with “other people and
7 entities, about other matters not in any way connected with” the allegations she has made against
8 Pitt, which thus are not “comparable” to the proposed Pitt NDA and are therefore categorically
9 irrelevant. Opp. at 5. She also argues that even if the documents sought are relevant, it would be
10 improper to order production because “[b]y their nature,” the Request “seriously invade[s] Jolie’s
11 privacy and the privacy rights of third parties.” Opp. at 17. Her arguments fail for at least the
12 following reasons.7
13 First, Jolie’s overly narrow relevance framing is not supported by any evidence. Jolie
14 admits that she possesses responsive NDAs with “studios, sponsors, service professionals,
15 employees, and independent contractors (among others) over nearly two decades of [her] career.”
16 Opp. at 14. But Jolie offers nothing to back up her argument that there is a “stark and obvious
17 contrast” between these NDAs and the NDA proposed by Pitt and Perrin, on which her defense
18 hinges—no declaration, no information about the terms of these other NDAs, no description of the
19 “others” with whom she has entered into NDAs, and no evidence of what type of conduct these
20 NDAs covered. This is insufficient to meet Jolie’s burden to “justify [her] objection” following
21 the “fact-specific showing of relevance” made by Pitt in his Motion. Kirkland v. Sup. Ct., 95 Cal.
23 In fact, the limited information currently available to Pitt squarely contradicts Jolie’s
24 position that her use of NDAs is not “remotely comparable” to her allegations that “Pitt was
25
7
Jolie’s lip-service arguments as to burden are waived and should be wholly disregarded because
26 she never objected to the Request on the ground that searching for responsive documents would
impose a burden, and she has not provided any “evidence showing the quantum of work required”
27
to search for the documents, as required to sustain a burden objection even if one existed.
28 Williams v. Sup. Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 549 (2017) (emphasis added).
18
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 attempting to leverage his purchase of Miraval into silencing Jolie.” Opp. at 15. For example, the
2 concurrently filed Declaration of Tony Webb reveals that Jolie is the one who has weaponized
3 NDAs in an effort to prevent an open airing of the couple’s family issues—the very thing that
4 Jolie claims was so sacred to her that Pitt’s proposed NDA caused her to renege on her deal to sell
5 to him. See Webb Decl. ¶¶ 2, 4–9 (averring that after the couple divorced and went to family
6 court, Mr. Webb received multiple calls from Jolie’s representative, who told Mr. Webb to remind
7 his staff that they had entered into NDAs with Jolie and that if they testified in a custody
8 proceeding, Jolie would sue them—and after they did so, Jolie fired Mr. Webb’s company).
9 Jolie’s use of NDAs to silence her security detail and attempt to prevent them from
10 testifying truthfully in court about what actually happened behind closed doors bears a striking
11 resemblance to Jolie’s (false) allegations in this case that Pitt improperly used an NDA to
12 “silenc[e]” her. Yet, without presenting any evidence, Jolie asks this Court to find that “[t]here is
13 no connection between them at all—none,” Opp. SSUF at 10, and in doing so, deny Pitt’s Motion.
14 This unsupported and clearly incorrect conclusion is not credible, and Pitt should be entitled to
15 obtain the additional evidence at issue here to further undermine Jolie’s NDA defense.
16 Second, whether this discovery ultimately makes it more likely or less likely that Jolie is
17 telling the truth about why she abandoned the sale of her interest in Miraval to Pitt is not a
18 determination to be made on a motion to compel—because either way, the NDAs and related
19 documents at issue here are likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence about that
20 disputed issue. Under California’s broad discovery standards, the documents and information
21 sought by this Motion are relevant and therefore discoverable because they have “any tendency in
22 reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the
23 action.” Evid. Code § 210; Lipton v. Superior Ct., 48 Cal. App. 4th 1599, 1612 (1996) (“The
25 More specifically, if Jolie intends to rely on the proposed NDA as a defense to the breach
26 of her obligations and her decision to abandon the transaction she and Pitt had been negotiating,
27 that is an ultimate question for the finder of fact to decide based on its own assessments and
28 conclusions (assuming arguendo that Jolie’s defense is legally viable at all). City of King City v.
19
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Cmty. Bank of Cent. California, 131 Cal. App. 4th 913, 936 (“Any evidence refuting [party’s]
2 claims as pleaded was not only material, but potentially dispositive—and eminently
4 important to Pitt—and an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie—goes to the very heart of
5 this case.”); Opp. at 5:6–8 (“[W]hat happened in the intervening months” between February and
6 June 15, 2021 “is hotly disputed,” and “[a]t trial, the jury will have to resolve this important
7 factual dispute.”). And for Pitt to present this additional evidence to the ultimate finder of fact, he,
9 Documents regarding the circumstances of Jolie’s NDAs with third parties are also highly
10 relevant for so long as Jolie is permitted to raise this defense. For example, if Jolie signed NDAs
11 with third parties that limited her (or others’) ability to speak about actual or potential misconduct
12 similar to what she alleges against here against Pitt, and she signed those NDAs after the conduct
13 occurred, a jury would be less likely to credit her purported justification for breaching the parties’
14 agreement not to sell their interests without the other’s consent. Again, this is not mere
15 speculation: After Jolie sold her interests in Miraval to Stoli claiming that the NDA proposed by
16 Pitt’s counsel was ”emotionally devastating,” her divorce lawyer proposed an even broader NDA
17 in connection with resolution of the family court proceeding that would have further limited her
18 “freedom to speak.” But if Jolie gets her way, Pitt will never even discover whether such NDAs
20 Third, Jolie’s blanket “nothing is comparable” argument has been rejected in several
21 analogous cases. E.g., Davies v. Superior Ct., 36 Cal. 3d 291, 301 (1984) (state records
22 concerning other accidents on a highway that accident victim contended was dangerous are
23 “relevant to the subject matter of a lawsuit arising out of another accident at the same location, and
24 may aid in the parties’ preparation for trial,” notwithstanding state’s “extraordinary” argument to
25 the contrary); Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Superior Ct., 31 Cal. 3d 785, 790–91 (1982)
26 (because plaintiff could establish a claim by showing that the acts at issue were a general business
27 practice, “[d]iscovery aimed at determining the frequency of alleged unfair settlement practices is
28 therefore likely to produce evidence directly relevant to the action,” notwithstanding the insurer’s
20
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 “patently meritless” objections); Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of New York, Inc., 246
2 Cal. App. 4th 566, 593 (2016) (“[T]he fact that the other . . . incidents may have been different
3 from the one that allegedly occurred here does not mean the other perpetrator evidence was not
4 discoverable.”). In other words, because the documents deal with a subject of consequence to the
5 determination of the action, and one which Jolie herself has injected into the matter, the question
6 of “comparability” is not for Jolie to decide, and Jolie’s subjective position on the issue should not
8 In short, establishing that NDAs are a commonplace feature of Jolie’s personal and
9 professional life, and entirely routine for her, goes directly to the credibility of her defense—
10 regardless of the precise terms or subject matter of any one particular NDA.
11 Fourth, Jolie’s argument that “specific past instances of Jolie’s conduct to prove her
12 conduct on this occasion is . . . barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787, and 1101(a)[,]” (Opp.
13 at 18 n.2), misses the mark. None of those provisions are applicable here—section 786 deals only
14 with “[e]vidence of traits of [] character,” section 787 deals only with “evidence of specific
15 instances of [] conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of [] character,” and section
16 1101(a) deals only with “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character.” Jolie’s
17 use of NDAs plainly is not evidence of her “propensity or tendency to act in a certain way under
18 certain circumstances.” Cal. Prac. Guide Civ. Trials & Ev. Ch. 8E-E (emphasis original); cf.
19 Evid. Code § 1105 (evidence of a person’s “habit or custom” is admissible). The evidence sought
20 here goes to the merits of Jolie’s factual contention that she viewed Pitt and Perrin’s request for an
21 NDA as “an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie,” X-C ¶ 39, not her character.
22 Fifth and finally, Jolie cannot meet her burden to “establish a legally protected privacy
24 threatened intrusion that is serious,” Williams v. Superior Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 552 (2017),
25 particularly given that the operative Protective Order in this case allows her to designate the
26 information as confidential and thereby avoid its improper distribution or filing to the public
27 docket, see Alch v. Superior Ct., 165 Cal. App. 4th 1412, 1432 (2008). Jolie has not offered any
28 declaration or actual evidence concerning what information exists in these NDAs, let alone
21
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 “specifically identified” a constitutionally protected privacy interest for herself or for third parties,
2 as she is required to do in the first instance. Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Assn., 7 Cal. 4th 1, 37
3 (1994). And as for Jolie’s claim for the first time in Opposition that the NDAs may “include
4 Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties,” Opp. at 17, Jolie does not cite a
5 single case showing that she (or the third parties) have a privacy right to such information—which
6 is routinely produced in commercial disputes, which would here be subject to a strict protective
7 order, and which Jolie could have asked during the parties’ meet-and-confer negotiations to
9 Further, even if Jolie had satisfied her burden to establish that the requested documents
10 contain information that would pose a serious intrusion upon legally recognized privacy rights if
11 produced pursuant to the operative Protective Order—and she did not—Jolie would also have to
12 “show[] that the [documents] cannot successfully be redacted” to eliminate that risk of “serious”
13 invasion. Snibbe v. Superior Ct., 224 Cal. App. 4th 184, 194–96 (2014); Overstock.com, Inc. v.
14 Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc., 231 Cal. App. 4th 471, 508 (2014) (approving of redaction to protect
15 privacy rights). Jolie has not even tried to do this—indeed, when Plaintiffs suggested during
16 meet-and-confer negotiations that Jolie may redact personally identifying information of third
17 parties (at least in the first instance, and then the parties can meet and confer, if necessary, about
18 such redactions), Jolie rejected that offer too. See Cherlow Decl., Ex. 5 at 2, n.1; id. Ex. 6 at 1.
19 Because Jolie has not “specifically identified” a “serious invasion” of privacy rights at
20 stake, let alone explained why redactions and the protective order would not resolve any concern,
21 she cannot withhold the documents based on privacy rights either. Hill, 7 Cal. 4th at 37; Snibbe,
22 224 Cal. App. 4th at 194–96; Alch, 165 Cal. App. 4th at 1427.
25 entity YOU control, or any PERSON acting on YOUR behalf, have requested or proposed that any
26 other PERSON sign or agree to, including non-disclosure or nondisparagement agreements that
27 were never signed or agreed to.
28
22
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 JOLIE’S RESPONSE TO REQUEST FOR PRODUCTION NO. 3:
2 In addition to the general objections, Jolie objects to this request on the following grounds:
3 (a) the request is overbroad as any non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements other than
4 those between Jolie and Pitt entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their
5 children have no relevance to this case; (b) the request seeks documents protected from disclosure
6 by the attorney-client privilege, the work product doctrine; and (c) for the parties to any such
7 agreements, the request seeks documents protected from disclosure by their rights of privacy under
9 Subject to the foregoing general and specific objections, Jolie responds as follows: Jolie
10 will produce non-privileged drafts and executed non-disclosure and nondisparagement agreements
11 between Jolie and Pitt, entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children,
15 The defined term “YOU” refers here to the Defendant, Angelina Jolie. The sole question
16 before the Court in connection with this Request, therefore, is whether Jolie’s non-disclosure
17 and/or non-disparagement agreements with third parties are relevant or likely to lead to the
20 clauses in this lawsuit. For example, to rationalize her wrongful refusal to sell her indirect interest
21 in Château Miraval to Pitt, Jolie alleges that “the deal [for Pitt to purchase her stake in Château
22
23 8
Jolie did not object and has not contended that it would be unduly burdensome to produce these
24 documents. Nor has she proffered any evidence of the “quantum of work required” to make such
a production as required to sustain such an objection. See Williams, 3 Cal. 5th at 549 (“[T]he
25 party opposing discovery has an obligation to supply the basis for this determination. An
‘objection based upon burden must be sustained by evidence showing the quantum of work
26 required.’”). Further, Jolie’s boilerplate objections that the Request calls for information protected
by the attorney/client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or the right to privacy
27
might justify redacting or withholding certain documents—but these objections cannot justify her
28 flat refusal to produce responsive documents.
23
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Miraval] fell apart because Pitt demanded Jolie agree to a non-disparagement clause covering his
2 personal conduct as a condition of his purchase of the winery.” X-C ¶ 39. Jolie asserts that this
3 issue “goes to the very heart of this case,” and she seeks a declaratory judgment that Pitt’s request
4 rendered “unconscionable, void, and against public policy” the former couple’s implied-in-fact
5 contract providing that each of them would have a consent right over any sale to a third party. Id.
6 ¶¶ 39, 42(c). Jolie also recently filed her own Motion to Compel in which she claims that Pitt and
7 his winemaker partner Perrin’s suggested non-disclosure provision was “cruel,” “hurtful,” caused
8 her to “nearly shutdown,” and was the reason she terminated her negotiations to sell her indirect
9 interest in the winery to Pitt. Pitt, for his part, asserts that these claims are pretextual.
10 To probe the veracity of this NDA defense at “the very heart of” Jolie’s case, Pitt served
11 this Request seeking NDAs to which Jolie requested third parties agree. These documents are
12 probative of whether Jolie actually viewed the provision requested by Pitt and Perrin as an
13 “abusive and controlling deal-breaker” that released her of any contractual obligations to Pitt.
14 Jolie unsurprisingly wants to shield these documents from discovery, and therefore agreed to
15 produce only those NDAs, if any, between Jolie and Pitt themselves.9 Jolie adamantly refuses to
16 produce other NDAs that she willingly entered into during the relevant time period, presumably
18 Specifically, the scope, terms, and subject matter of NDAs that Jolie asked third parties to
19 enter into are highly relevant to Jolie’s defenses because they evidence non-disparagement terms
20 that Jolie believes are appropriate and not “unconscionable” to request from others. For example,
22 an NDA covering what he or she witnessed in her home—including Pitt’s treatment of her and her
23 children—that would be highly probative of whether she truly believed the provision requested by
24 Pitt was an “unconscionable gag order.” The same is true with respect to any NDA between Jolie
25 and any third party with whom she is in a relationship or who has assisted with the care of the
26
9
In the meet-and-confer process preceding this Motion, Jolie agreed to produce documents
27
concerning “NDAs discussed or entered” and/or “entered or proposed between Mr. Pitt and
28 Ms. Jolie.” Ex. 4 at 1–2 (emphases added); see also Ex. 6 at 1–2.
24
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 couple’s children. To the extent that Jolie requested this third party’s silence about her family or
2 homelife, particularly in a circumstance where there was no business justification, it would speak
3 volumes about whether Jolie actually viewed Pitt’s request linked to the Miraval business as the
4 deal-ender she subsequently alleged it to be. NDAs dealing with different subject matter are also
5 likely to lead to admissible evidence—namely, deposition testimony about why Jolie believed
6 those subjects were appropriate for NDAs while others were unconscionable. These documents
7 should be produced.
8 Jolie nonetheless bases her objection on her alleged subjective belief that the non-
9 disparagement provision requested by Pitt was uniquely objectionable because it would have
10 covered (broadly speaking) the details of the parties’ relationship. But this argument goes to the
11 probative weight of the documents requested, not the relevance, and accordingly has no place at
12 the discovery phase. Nor is the Request overbroad or excessive. Rather, it is laser-focused on the
13 NDAs themselves, a narrow set of documents that are readily available to Jolie.
14 The Request is reasonably calculated to lead to discovery of documents that will test
15 whether Jolie was truly so offended by the proposed NDA and her claim that she was entitled to
16 breach her contract with Pitt and improperly sell to the Stoli Parties, or whether (as Pitt believes
17 these documents will help show) her defense is pure pretext. “That is enough to justify
21 As the moving party seeking to compel the production of documents, Pitt has the burden to
22 make a “fact-specific showing of relevance” concerning the documents he seeks. Glenfed Dev.
23 Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1117 (1997). In RFP No. 3, Pitt seeks to compel
24 the production of over 16 years’ worth of contracts, whether executed or mere drafts, where Jolie,
25 any entity Jolie controls, or any of Jolie’s agents, proposed to include an NDA in the contract.
26 According to Pitt, these other NDAs with other people about other matters unrelated to this
27 lawsuit somehow test Jolie’s credibility because Jolie asserts that Pitt’s agreement to buy her
28 interest in Miraval fell apart when she refused Pitt’s demand for an NDA to cover Pitt’s physical
25
PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children.
2 But Pitt’s argument is a non-sequitur. Its most obvious problem is that it attempts to equate
3 NDAs Jolie or entities she owned or controlled considered or entered that do not cover Pitt’s abuse
4 of their family with the personal NDA Pitt himself demanded to cover-up his own abuse of Jolie
5 and their children. There is no connection between them at all—none. For this reason, other NDAs
6 Jolie considered or entered with other people and entities do not probe Jolie’s veracity regarding
7 the impact of Pitt’s proposed NDA had on Jolie in any way. And contrary to Pitt’s suggestion,
8 Jolie does not contend in her Cross-Complaint that all NDAs are bad or problematic, and she does
9 not seek such a blanket ruling in this case. To the contrary, Jolie was at all times agreeable to the
10 original NDA Pitt proposed that was limited to the winery. It was only after Pitt changed the
11 language to cover his personal abuse of the family that Jolie objected. Indeed, there is a stark
12 difference between an NDA Jolie or an entity she owned or controlled considered or entered with
13 a movie studio, vendor, service professional or an employee, and the last-minute, expanded NDA
14 her abusive ex-husband tried to force her to sign to bury his criminal conduct.
15 Pitt’s related argument that Jolie asking others to enter NDAs covering aspects of her
16 private life is probative of Pitt asking Jolie to be silent about criminal conduct he committed is a
17 false equivalence. If Jolie hired someone to prepare meals for her family inside her home and
18 asked that person to enter an NDA so the person would not disclose to the tabloids what her
19 family ate every day (Motion at 14), that particular NDA has no relevance to how Jolie felt when
20 Pitt asked her to sign an NDA silencing her from speaking about her own life and the painful
21 events she experienced at Pitt’s hands. Even farther removed are actual and draft NDAs with
22 vendors and service professionals for Jolie’s businesses and business interests.
23 Pitt’s request for the documents fails for other reasons as well. The law is clear that “courts
24 shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that
25 discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of
26 admissible evidence.” C.C.P. § 2017.020. Here, the burden, expense, and intrusiveness of Jolie
27 having to gather and produce nearly two decades of contracts clearly outweighs the likelihood that
28 the information sought will lead to the discovery of admissible evidence. Moreover, if the Court
26
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 concludes that the evidence is relevant and admissible, this will then result in a series of mini-trials
2 for each and every contract Pitt hopes to use. The Court is never going to allow such mini-trials.
3 As a result, the documents are not only irrelevant, but they are also not likely to lead to the
5 In fact, Pitt’s use of these documents at trial will be separately barred by Evidence Code
6 sections 786, 787 and 1101(a) because this is improper character evidence. Section 786 states that
7 evidence “of traits of his character other than honesty or veracity, or their opposites, is
8 inadmissible to attack or support the credibility of a witness.” Section 787 states that, aside from
9 prior felony convictions, “Evidence of specific instances of his conduct relevant only as tending to
10 prove a trait of his character is inadmissible to attack or support the credibility of a witness.” And
11 Section 1101(a) states that “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character
12 (whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of reputation, or evidence of specific instances of his
13 or her conduct) is inadmissible when offered to prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.”
14 Pitt’s theory is barred by each of these sections of the Evidence Code. He will not be able to use
15 prior instances of Jolie’s and her businesses’ conduct (considering or entering other NDAs from
16 other people about other matters) to prove that she should have been fine with agreeing to his
18 Further, Pitt’s request is also overbroad as to time and scope. It seeks all draft and final
19 NDAs Jolie considered from January 1, 2007 through the present, but Jolie contends the NDA Pitt
20 proposed was problematic because it attempted to bury Pitt’s abuse. There is no relevance to
21 contracts she entered into with other people about issues unrelated to the abuse. At best, Pitt is
22 entitled to any NDAs Jolie entered with Pitt, which Jolie has agreed to give. Anything else is
24 Pitt’s demand for nearly two decades worth of requested or entered NDAs from her and
25 her businesses also intrudes on Jolie’s right of privacy. When assessing a claimed privacy right,
26 the “privacy interests [must] be specifically identified and carefully comparted with competing or
27 countervailing privacy and nonprivacy interests in a balancing test.” Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate
28 Athletic Ass’n, 7 Cal.4th 37-38 (1994). As a starting point, courts must first “place the burden on
27
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 the party asserting a privacy interest to establish its extent and seriousness of the prospective
2 invasion, and against that showing must weigh the countervailing interest the opposing party
3 identifies.” Williams v. Superior Court, 3 Cal.5th 531, 557 (2017). “In weighing the privacy
4 interests of the third party, the trial court should consider the nature of the information sought, its
5 inherent intrusiveness, and any specific showing for a need for privacy, including any harm that
6 disclosure of the information might cause.” In re Marriage of Williamson, 226 Cal.App.4th 1303,
7 1319 (2014).
8 Here, most, if not all, of these agreements will be employment-related contracts that
9 include Jolie’s actual or proposed compensation or compensation she or her businesses considered
10 or paid to third parties. These third parties have their own privacy rights. Pitt has not even offered
11 to give any form of notice whatsoever to these third-parties to allow them the opportunity to
12 protect their rights, nor does he acknowledge that these other persons and entities have privacy
13 rights here. Against this sensitive information, Pitt has little countervailing interest in obtaining
14 these documents. Moreover, any negligible relevance is greatly outweighed by Pitt’s intrusion into
15 Jolie’s and these third parties’ privacy rights, with the balance in favor of protecting privacy
16 rights—made all the more problematic by the fact that such evidence has virtually no chance of
18 Pitt wants to argue that because Jolie and her businesses considered or entered NDAs with
19 other people, she personally could not have been bothered by the NDA Pitt demanded she sign.
20 But each and every one of these other NDAs involve separate people, different interests, and
21 unique facts. None will involve NDAs that prohibit Jolie from speaking about Pitt’s abuse of her
22 and their children. Forcing Jolie to spend the time and expense of gathering and producing all of
23 this documentation is expensive, wasteful, and unreasonable—and the latest manifestation of Pitt’s
24 abusive conduct toward Jolie. The Court should not allow it.
28 entities, about other matters not in any way connected with” the allegations she has made against
28
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1 Pitt, which thus are not “comparable” to the proposed Pitt NDA and are therefore categorically
2 irrelevant. Opp. at 5. She also argues that even if the documents sought are relevant, it would be
3 improper to order production because “[b]y their nature,” the Request “seriously invade[s] Jolie’s
4 privacy and the privacy rights of third parties.” Opp. at 17. Her arguments fail for at least the
5 following reasons.10
6 First, Jolie’s overly narrow relevance framing is not supported by any evidence. Jolie
7 admits that she possesses responsive NDAs with “studios, sponsors, service professionals,
8 employees, and independent contractors (among others) over nearly two decades of [her] career.”
9 Opp. at 14. But Jolie offers nothing to back up her argument that there is a “stark and obvious
10 contrast” between these NDAs and the NDA proposed by Pitt and Perrin, on which her defense
11 hinges—no declaration, no information about the terms of these other NDAs, no description of the
12 “others” with whom she has entered into NDAs, and no evidence of what type of conduct these
13 NDAs covered. This is insufficient to meet Jolie’s burden to “justify [her] objection” following
14 the “fact-specific showing of relevance” made by Pitt in his Motion. Kirkland v. Sup. Ct., 95 Cal.
16 In fact, the limited information currently available to Pitt squarely contradicts Jolie’s
17 position that her use of NDAs is not “remotely comparable” to her allegations that “Pitt was
18 attempting to leverage his purchase of Miraval into silencing Jolie.” Opp. at 15. For example, the
19 concurrently filed Declaration of Tony Webb reveals that Jolie is the one who has weaponized
20 NDAs in an effort to prevent an open airing of the couple’s family issues—the very thing that
21 Jolie claims was so sacred to her that Pitt’s proposed NDA caused her to renege on her deal to sell
22 to him. See Webb Decl. ¶¶ 2, 4–9 (averring that after the couple divorced and went to family
23 court, Mr. Webb received multiple calls from Jolie’s representative, who told Mr. Webb to remind
24 his staff that they had entered into NDAs with Jolie and that if they testified in a custody
25
10
Jolie’s lip-service arguments as to burden are waived and should be wholly disregarded because
26 she never objected to the Request on the ground that searching for responsive documents would
impose a burden, and she has not provided any “evidence showing the quantum of work required”
27
to search for the documents, as required to sustain a burden objection even if one existed.
28 Williams v. Sup. Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 549 (2017) (emphasis added).
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1 proceeding, Jolie would sue them—and after they did so, Jolie fired Mr. Webb’s company).
2 Jolie’s use of NDAs to silence her security detail and attempt to prevent them from
3 testifying truthfully in court about what actually happened behind closed doors bears a striking
4 resemblance to Jolie’s (false) allegations in this case that Pitt improperly used an NDA to
5 “silenc[e]” her. Yet, without presenting any evidence, Jolie asks this Court to find that “[t]here is
6 no connection between them at all—none,” Opp. SSUF at 16, and in doing so, deny Pitt’s Motion.
7 This unsupported and clearly incorrect conclusion is not credible, and Pitt should be entitled to
8 obtain the additional evidence at issue here to further undermine Jolie’s NDA defense.
9 Second, whether this discovery ultimately makes it more likely or less likely that Jolie is
10 telling the truth about why she abandoned the sale of her interest in Miraval to Pitt is not a
11 determination to be made on a motion to compel—because either way, the NDAs and related
12 documents at issue here are likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence about that
13 disputed issue. Under California’s broad discovery standards, the documents and information
14 sought by this Motion are relevant and therefore discoverable because they have “any tendency in
15 reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the
16 action.” Evid. Code § 210; Lipton v. Superior Ct., 48 Cal. App. 4th 1599, 1612 (1996) (“The
18 More specifically, if Jolie intends to rely on the proposed NDA as a defense to the breach
19 of her obligations and her decision to abandon the transaction she and Pitt had been negotiating,
20 that is an ultimate question for the finder of fact to decide based on its own assessments and
21 conclusions (assuming arguendo that Jolie’s defense is legally viable at all). City of King City v.
22 Cmty. Bank of Cent. California, 131 Cal. App. 4th 913, 936 (“Any evidence refuting [party’s]
23 claims as pleaded was not only material, but potentially dispositive—and eminently
25 important to Pitt—and an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie—goes to the very heart of
26 this case.”); Opp. at 5:6–8 (“[W]hat happened in the intervening months” between February and
27 June 15, 2021 “is hotly disputed,” and “[a]t trial, the jury will have to resolve this important
28 factual dispute.”). And for Pitt to present this additional evidence to the ultimate finder of fact, he,
30
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 of course, needs to first obtain it from Jolie.
2 Even to the extent that “Jolie sought NDAs from third parties to protect her own business
3 interests,” Opp. at 16, these documents are relevant in assessing whether this NDA was
4 “unconscionable.” Jolie argues otherwise, repeating her refrain that “[t]hese are other contracts
5 with other parties about other matters.” Id. But for public figures, the line between business
6 interests and personal conduct is often blurred. Public figures often seek or sign non-disclosure
7 and non-disparagement agreements with terms that may appear onerous to others, in large part, to
8 protect their personal brands and businesses with which they are closely affiliated from costly
9 reputational harm. Indeed, Jolie’s counsel stated in correspondence that Jolie understood that “the
10 primary if not sole concern” that Pitt and Perrin expressed when they allegedly stepped back from
11 deal negotiations was “how this situation might affect a business.” Cherlow Decl., Ex. 8 at 2
12 (emphasis added). Likewise, while Jolie asserts that NDAs with sponsors can never be relevant,
13 Opp. at 14, if those NDAs also contained provisions related to her personal conduct—particularly
14 in connection with a morality clause—it would be probative of the extent to which Jolie truly
15 perceived the proposed NDA at issue in this case as unconscionable or whether she in fact
16 understood that Pitt and his business partner Perrin were seeking the NDA to protect the value of
18 Third, Jolie’s blanket “nothing is comparable” argument has been rejected in several
19 analogous cases. E.g., Davies v. Superior Ct., 36 Cal. 3d 291, 301 (1984) (state records
20 concerning other accidents on a highway that accident victim contended was dangerous are
21 “relevant to the subject matter of a lawsuit arising out of another accident at the same location, and
22 may aid in the parties’ preparation for trial,” notwithstanding state’s “extraordinary” argument to
23 the contrary); Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Superior Ct., 31 Cal. 3d 785, 790–91 (1982)
24 (because plaintiff could establish a claim by showing that the acts at issue were a general business
25 practice, “[d]iscovery aimed at determining the frequency of alleged unfair settlement practices is
26 therefore likely to produce evidence directly relevant to the action,” notwithstanding the insurer’s
27 “patently meritless” objections); Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of New York, Inc., 246
28 Cal. App. 4th 566, 593 (2016) (“[T]he fact that the other . . . incidents may have been different
31
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1 from the one that allegedly occurred here does not mean the other perpetrator evidence was not
2 discoverable.”). In other words, because the documents deal with a subject of consequence to the
3 determination of the action, and one which Jolie herself has injected into the matter, the question
4 of “comparability” is not for Jolie to decide, and Jolie’s subjective position on the issue should not
6 In short, establishing that NDAs are a commonplace feature of Jolie’s personal and
7 professional life, and entirely routine for her, goes directly to the credibility of her defense—
8 regardless of the precise terms or subject matter of any one particular NDA.
9 Fourth, Jolie’s argument that “specific past instances of Jolie’s conduct to prove her
10 conduct on this occasion is . . . barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787, and 1101(a)[,]” (Opp.
11 at 18 n.2), misses the mark. None of those provisions are applicable here—section 786 deals only
12 with “[e]vidence of traits of [] character,” section 787 deals only with “evidence of specific
13 instances of [] conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of [] character,” and section
14 1101(a) deals only with “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character.” Jolie’s
15 use of NDAs plainly is not evidence of her “propensity or tendency to act in a certain way under
16 certain circumstances.” Cal. Prac. Guide Civ. Trials & Ev. Ch. 8E-E (emphasis original); cf.
17 Evid. Code § 1105 (evidence of a person’s “habit or custom” is admissible). The evidence sought
18 here goes to the merits of Jolie’s factual contention that she viewed Pitt and Perrin’s request for an
19 NDA as “an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie,” X-C ¶ 39, not her character.
20 Fifth and finally, Jolie cannot meet her burden to “establish a legally protected privacy
22 threatened intrusion that is serious,” Williams v. Superior Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 552 (2017),
23 particularly given that the operative Protective Order in this case allows her to designate the
24 information as confidential and thereby avoid its improper distribution or filing to the public
25 docket, see Alch v. Superior Ct., 165 Cal. App. 4th 1412, 1432 (2008). Jolie has not offered any
26 declaration or actual evidence concerning what information exists in these NDAs, let alone
27 “specifically identified” a constitutionally protected privacy interest for herself or for third parties,
28 as she is required to do in the first instance. Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Assn., 7 Cal. 4th 1, 37
32
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1 (1994). And as for Jolie’s claim for the first time in Opposition that the NDAs may “include
2 Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties,” Opp. at 17, Jolie does not cite a
3 single case showing that she (or the third parties) have a privacy right to such information—which
4 is routinely produced in commercial disputes, which would here be subject to a strict protective
5 order, and which Jolie could have asked during the parties’ meet-and-confer negotiations to
7 Further, even if Jolie had satisfied her burden to establish that the requested documents
8 contain information that would pose a serious intrusion upon legally recognized privacy rights if
9 produced pursuant to the operative Protective Order—and she did not—Jolie would also have to
10 “show[] that the [documents] cannot successfully be redacted” to eliminate that risk of “serious”
11 invasion. Snibbe v. Superior Ct., 224 Cal. App. 4th 184, 194–96 (2014); Overstock.com, Inc. v.
12 Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc., 231 Cal. App. 4th 471, 508 (2014) (approving of redaction to protect
13 privacy rights). Jolie has not even tried to do this—indeed, when Plaintiffs suggested during
14 meet-and-confer negotiations that Jolie may redact personally identifying information of third
15 parties (at least in the first instance, and then the parties can meet and confer, if necessary, about
16 such redactions), Jolie rejected that offer too. See Cherlow Decl., Ex. 5 at 2, n.1; id. Ex. 6 at 1.
17 Because Jolie has not “specifically identified” a “serious invasion” of privacy rights at
18 stake, let alone explained why redactions and the protective order would not resolve any concern,
19 she cannot withhold the documents based on privacy rights either. Hill, 7 Cal. 4th at 37; Snibbe,
20 224 Cal. App. 4th at 194–96; Alch, 165 Cal. App. 4th at 1427.
23 any entity YOU control, or any PERSON acting on YOUR behalf, requested or proposed that any
28 (a) the use of the term “concerning,” standing alone and as defined by Plaintiffs, renders the
33
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 request grossly overbroad in time and scope; (b) the request is overbroad as any non-disclosure
2 and non-disparagement agreements other than those between Jolie and Pitt entered after Pitt’s
3 physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children have no relevance to this case; (c) the
4 request seeks documents protected from disclosure by the attorney-client privilege, the work
5 product doctrine; and (d) for the parties to any such agreements, the request seeks documents
6 protected from disclosure by their rights of privacy under the Constitution of the State of
7 California.
8 Subject to the foregoing general and specific objections, Jolie responds as follows: Jolie
9 will produce any non-privileged documents and communications discussing or referencing Jolie’s
10 reasons for entering into proposed or entered non-disclosure and non-disparagement agreements
11 between Jolie and Pitt, entered after Pitt’s physical and emotional abuse of Jolie and their children,
15 As an initial matter, Jolie objects that the defined term “CONCERNING” renders this
16 Request grossly overbroad in time and scope. For avoidance of doubt, this Request seeks only
17 documents that set forth or explicitly reference Jolie’s reasons for entering or agreeing to NDAs
18 during the same time period for which she has agreed to produce documents in response to other
19 requests—not all documents that could conceivably relate to her thought process at the time, let
20 alone those concerning the underlying facts of events that may be covered by the NDAs.
21 The defined term “YOU” refers here to the Defendant, Angelina Jolie. The sole question
22 before the Court in connection with this Request, therefore, is whether Jolie’s non-disclosure
23 and/or non-disparagement agreements with third parties are relevant or likely to lead to the
25
11
Jolie did not object and has not contended that it would be unduly burdensome to produce these
26 documents. Nor has she proffered any evidence of the “quantum of work required” to make such
a production as required to sustain such an objection. See Williams, 3 Cal. 5th at 549 (“[T]he
27
party opposing discovery has an obligation to supply the basis for this determination. An
28 ‘objection based upon burden must be sustained by evidence showing the quantum of work
34
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Jolie—not Pitt—places an oversized emphasis on the importance of non-disparagement
2 clauses in this lawsuit. For example, to rationalize her wrongful refusal to sell her indirect interest
3 in Château Miraval to Pitt, Jolie alleges that “the deal [for Pitt to purchase her stake in Château
4 Miraval] fell apart because Pitt demanded Jolie agree to a non-disparagement clause covering his
5 personal conduct as a condition of his purchase of the winery.” X-C ¶ 39. Jolie asserts that this
6 issue “goes to the very heart of this case,” and she seeks a declaratory judgment that Pitt’s request
7 rendered “unconscionable, void, and against public policy” the former couple’s implied-in-fact
8 contract providing that each of them would have a consent right over any sale to a third party. Id.
9 ¶¶ 39, 42(c). Jolie also recently filed her own Motion to Compel in which she claims that Pitt and
10 his winemaker partner Perrin’s suggested non-disclosure provision was “cruel,” “hurtful,” caused
11 her to “nearly shutdown,” and was the reason she terminated her negotiations to sell her indirect
12 interest in the winery to Pitt. Pitt, for his part, asserts that these claims are pretextual.
13 To probe the veracity of this NDA defense at “the very heart of” Jolie’s case, Pitt served
14 this Request seeking a narrow set of documents setting forth or referring to the reasons why Jolie
15 proactively requested NDAs from third parties. These documents are probative of whether Jolie
16 actually viewed the provision requested by Pitt and Perrin as an “abusive and controlling deal-
17 breaker” that released her of any contractual obligations to Pitt. Jolie unsurprisingly wants to
18 shield these documents from discovery, and therefore agreed to produce only those NDAs, if any,
19 between Jolie and Pitt themselves.12 Jolie adamantly refuses to produce other NDAs that she
20 willingly entered into during the relevant time period, presumably because she knows they will
22 Specifically, these documents setting forth or referring to the reasons why Jolie proactively
23
24 required.’”). Further, Jolie’s boilerplate objections that the Request calls for information protected
by the attorney/client privilege, the attorney work product doctrine, and/or the right to privacy
25 might justify redacting or withholding certain documents—but these objections cannot justify her
flat refusal to produce responsive documents.
26
12
In the meet-and-confer process preceding this Motion, Jolie agreed to produce documents
27
concerning “NDAs discussed or entered” and/or “entered or proposed between Mr. Pitt and
28 Ms. Jolie.” Ex. 4 at 1–2 (emphases added); see also Ex. 6 at 1–2.
35
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 requested NDAs from third parties are probative of Jolie’s views about the many legitimate
2 reasons for entering into NDAs—for instance, to avoid negative publicity that could harm a
3 business (i.e., the very reason that Pitt pleads he and Perrin sought the non-disparagement
4 provisions at issue here). Evidence that Jolie entered into NDAs covering similar subjects for
5 similar reasons as Pitt would undermine her contention that Pitt’s request rendered their implied-
6 in-fact contract unconscionable as a matter of public policy, a defense that is legally deficient in
7 any event, but which Jolie submits is at “the very heart of the case.” Accordingly, these
9 Jolie nonetheless bases her objection on her alleged subjective belief that the non-
10 disparagement provision requested by Pitt was uniquely objectionable because it would have
11 covered (broadly speaking) the details of the parties’ relationship. But this argument goes to the
12 probative weight of the documents requested, not the relevance, and accordingly has no place at
13 the discovery phase. Nor is the Request overbroad or excessive. Rather, it is laser-focused on the
14 NDAs themselves, a narrow set of documents that are readily available to Jolie.
15 The Request is reasonably calculated to lead to discovery of documents that will test
16 whether Jolie was truly so offended by the proposed NDA and her claim that she was entitled to
17 breach her contract with Pitt and improperly sell to the Stoli Parties, or whether (as Pitt believes
18 these documents will help show) her defense is pure pretext. “That is enough to justify
22 As the moving party seeking to compel the production of documents, Pitt has the burden to
23 make a “fact-specific showing of relevance” concerning the documents he seeks. Glenfed Dev.
24 Corp. v. Superior Court, 53 Cal.App.4th 1113, 1117 (1997). In RFP No. 4, Pitt seeks to compel
25 the production of over 16 years’ worth of “documents and communications” about contracts where
26 Jolie, any of her companies, or her agents, proposed to include an NDA in a contract, whether that
27 contract was ever executed or not—specifically demanding every document reflecting the reason
28 why Jolie and her businesses sought or agreed to an NDA with any person over this time period.
36
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 According to Pitt, Jolie’s and her businesses’ reasons for requesting other NDAs from other
2 people about other matters will probe whether Jolie was genuinely offended by Pitt asking for an
3 NDA that prohibited Jolie from personally speaking about abuse she and their children suffered at
4 Pitt’s hands. Even farther removed are actual and draft NDAs with vendors and service
6 But Pitt’s argument is a non-sequitur. Its most obvious problem is that it attempts to equate
7 reasons Jolie and her businesses requested NDAs that do not cover Pitt’s abuse of their family
8 with the NDA Pitt himself demanded to cover-up his own abuse of Jolie and their children. There
9 is no connection between them at all—none. For this reason, these communications about other
10 NDAs Jolie requested do not probe Jolie’s veracity regarding the impact of Pitt’s proposed NDA
11 in any way. And contrary to Pitt’s suggestion, Jolie does not contend in her Cross-Complaint that
12 all NDAs are bad or problematic, and she does not seek such a blanket ruling in this case. To the
13 contrary, Jolie was at all times agreeable to the original NDA Pitt proposed that was limited to the
14 winery. It was only after Pitt changed the language to cover his personal abuse of the family that
15 Jolie objected. Indeed, there is a stark difference between an NDA Jolie or her businesses
16 proposed or entered with a movie studio, vendor, service professional or an employee, and the
17 last-minute, expanded NDA her abusive ex-husband tried to force her to sign to bury his criminal
18 conduct.
19 Pitt’s related argument that Jolie asking others to enter NDAs covering aspects of her
20 private life is probative of Pitt asking Jolie to be silent about criminal conduct he committed is a
21 false equivalence. If Jolie hired someone to prepare meals for her family inside her home and
22 asked that person to enter an NDA so the person would not disclose to the tabloids what her
23 family ate every day (Motion at 14), that particular NDA has no relevance to how Jolie felt when
24 Pitt asked her to sign an NDA silencing her from speaking about her own life and the painful
26 Pitt’s request for the documents fails for other reasons as well. The law is clear that “courts
27 shall limit the scope of discovery if it determines that the burden, expense, or intrusiveness of that
28 discovery clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery of
37
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1 admissible evidence.” C.C.P. § 2017.020. Here, the burden, expense, and intrusiveness of Jolie
2 having to gather and produce nearly two decades of documents and communications clearly
3 outweighs clearly outweighs the likelihood that the information sought will lead to the discovery
4 of admissible evidence. Moreover, if the Court concludes that the evidence is relevant and
5 admissible, this will then result in a series of mini-trials for each and every contract Pitt hopes to
6 use. The Court is never going to allow such mini-trials. As a result, the documents are not only
7 irrelevant, but they are also not likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence.
8 In fact, Pitt’s proposed argument is going to be barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787
9 and 1101(a). Section 786 states that evidence “of traits of his character other than honesty or
11 Section 787 states that, aside from prior felony convictions, “Evidence of specific instances of his
12 conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of his character is inadmissible to attack or
13 support the credibility of a witness.” And Section 1101(a) states that “evidence of a person’s
14 character or a trait of his or her character (whether in the form of an opinion, evidence of
15 reputation, or evidence of specific instances of his or her conduct) is inadmissible when offered to
16 prove his or her conduct on a specified occasion.” Pitt’s theory is barred by each of these sections
17 of the Evidence Code. He will not be able to use prior instances of Jolie’s and her businesses’
18 conduct (requesting NDAs from other people about other matters) to prove that she should have
20 Further, Pitt’s request is also overbroad as to time and scope. It seeks all documents and
21 communications about all NDAs Jolie requested from January 1, 2007 through the present, but
22 Jolie contends the NDA Pitt proposed was problematic because it attempted to bury Pitt’s abuse.
23 There is no relevance to contracts she entered into with other people about issues unrelated to the
24 abuse. At best, Pitt is entitled to any NDAs Jolie entered with Pitt, which Jolie has agreed to give.
26 Pitt’s demand for nearly two decades worth of communications also intrudes on Jolie’s
27 right of privacy. When assessing a claimed privacy right, the “privacy interests [must] be
28 specifically identified and carefully comparted with competing or countervailing privacy and
38
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1 nonprivacy interests in a balancing test.” Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Ass’n, 7 Cal.4th 37-38
2 (1994). As a starting point, courts must first “place the burden on the party asserting a privacy
3 interest to establish its extent and seriousness of the prospective invasion, and against that showing
4 must weigh the countervailing interest the opposing party identifies.” Williams v. Superior Court,
5 3 Cal.5th 531, 557 (2017). “In weighing the privacy interests of the third party, the trial court
6 should consider the nature of the information sought, its inherent intrusiveness, and any specific
7 showing for a need for privacy, including any harm that disclosure of the information might
9 Here, most, if not all, of these documents and communications will concern employment-
10 related contracts that include Jolie’s compensation or compensation she or her businesses paid to
11 third parties. These third parties have their own privacy rights. Pitt has not even offered to give
12 any form of notice whatsoever to these third-parties to allow them the opportunity to protect their
13 rights, nor does he acknowledge that these other persons and entities have privacy rights here.
14 Against this sensitive information, Pitt has little countervailing interest in obtaining these
15 documents. Moreover, any negligible relevance is greatly outweighed by Pitt’s intrusion into
16 Jolie’s and these third parties’ privacy rights, with the balance in favor of protecting privacy
17 rights—made all the more problematic by the fact that such evidence has virtually no chance of
19 Pitt wants to argue that because over the last two decades, Jolie and her businesses
20 proposed or entered NDAs with other people, she could not have been bothered by the NDA Pitt
21 demanded she sign. But each and every one of these other NDAs involve separate people,
22 different interests, and unique facts. None will involve NDAs that prohibit Jolie from speaking
23 about Pitt’s abuse of her and their children. Forcing Jolie to spend the time and expense of
24 gathering and producing all of this documentation is expensive, wasteful, and unreasonable—and
25 the latest manifestation of Pitt’s abusive conduct toward Jolie. The Court should not allow it.
28 Jolie argues that the Request seeks information about NDAs with “other people and
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 entities, about other matters not in any way connected with” the allegations she has made against
2 Pitt, which thus are not “comparable” to the proposed Pitt NDA and are therefore categorically
3 irrelevant. Opp. at 5. She also argues that even if the documents sought are relevant, it would be
4 improper to order production because “[b]y their nature,” the Request “seriously invade[s] Jolie’s
5 privacy and the privacy rights of third parties.” Opp. at 17. Her arguments fail for at least the
6 following reasons.13
7 First, Jolie’s overly narrow relevance framing is not supported by any evidence. Jolie
8 admits that she possesses responsive NDAs with “studios, sponsors, service professionals,
9 employees, and independent contractors (among others) over nearly two decades of [her] career.”
10 Opp. at 14. But Jolie offers nothing to back up her argument that there is a “stark and obvious
11 contrast” between these NDAs and the NDA proposed by Pitt and Perrin, on which her defense
12 hinges—no declaration, no information about the terms of these other NDAs, no description of the
13 “others” with whom she has entered into NDAs, and no evidence of what type of conduct these
14 NDAs covered. This is insufficient to meet Jolie’s burden to “justify [her] objection” following
15 the “fact-specific showing of relevance” made by Pitt in his Motion. Kirkland v. Sup. Ct., 95 Cal.
17 In fact, the limited information currently available to Pitt squarely contradicts Jolie’s
18 position that her use of NDAs is not “remotely comparable” to her allegations that “Pitt was
19 attempting to leverage his purchase of Miraval into silencing Jolie.” Opp. at 15. For example, the
20 concurrently filed Declaration of Tony Webb reveals that Jolie is the one who has weaponized
21 NDAs in an effort to prevent an open airing of the couple’s family issues—the very thing that
22 Jolie claims was so sacred to her that Pitt’s proposed NDA caused her to renege on her deal to sell
23 to him. See Webb Decl. ¶¶ 2, 4–9 (averring that after the couple divorced and went to family
24 court, Mr. Webb received multiple calls from Jolie’s representative, who told Mr. Webb to remind
25
13
Jolie’s lip-service arguments as to burden are waived and should be wholly disregarded because
26 she never objected to the Request on the ground that searching for responsive documents would
impose a burden, and she has not provided any “evidence showing the quantum of work required”
27
to search for the documents, as required to sustain a burden objection even if one existed.
28 Williams v. Sup. Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 549 (2017) (emphasis added).
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FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 his staff that they had entered into NDAs with Jolie and that if they testified in a custody
2 proceeding, Jolie would sue them—and after they did so, Jolie fired Mr. Webb’s company).
3 Jolie’s use of NDAs to silence her security detail and attempt to prevent them from
4 testifying truthfully in court about what actually happened behind closed doors bears a striking
5 resemblance to Jolie’s (false) allegations in this case that Pitt improperly used an NDA to
6 “silenc[e]” her. Yet, without presenting any evidence, Jolie asks this Court to find that “[t]here is
7 no connection between them at all—none,” Opp. SSUF at 22, and in doing so, deny Pitt’s Motion.
8 This unsupported and clearly incorrect conclusion is not credible, and Pitt should be entitled to
9 obtain the additional evidence at issue here to further undermine Jolie’s NDA defense.
10 Second, whether this discovery ultimately makes it more likely or less likely that Jolie is
11 telling the truth about why she abandoned the sale of her interest in Miraval to Pitt is not a
12 determination to be made on a motion to compel—because either way, the NDAs and related
13 documents at issue here are likely to lead to the discovery of admissible evidence about that
14 disputed issue. Under California’s broad discovery standards, the documents and information
15 sought by this Motion are relevant and therefore discoverable because they have “any tendency in
16 reason to prove or disprove any disputed fact that is of consequence to the determination of the
17 action.” Evid. Code § 210; Lipton v. Superior Ct., 48 Cal. App. 4th 1599, 1612 (1996) (“The
19 More specifically, if Jolie intends to rely on the proposed NDA as a defense to the breach
20 of her obligations and her decision to abandon the transaction she and Pitt had been negotiating,
21 that is an ultimate question for the finder of fact to decide based on its own assessments and
22 conclusions (assuming arguendo that Jolie’s defense is legally viable at all). City of King City v.
23 Cmty. Bank of Cent. California, 131 Cal. App. 4th 913, 936 (“Any evidence refuting [party’s]
24 claims as pleaded was not only material, but potentially dispositive—and eminently
26 important to Pitt—and an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie—goes to the very heart of
27 this case.”); Opp. at 5:6–8 (“[W]hat happened in the intervening months” between February and
28 June 15, 2021 “is hotly disputed,” and “[a]t trial, the jury will have to resolve this important
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 factual dispute.”). And for Pitt to present this additional evidence to the ultimate finder of fact, he,
3 Even to the extent that “Jolie sought NDAs from third parties to protect her own business
4 interests,” Opp. at 16, these documents are relevant in assessing whether this NDA was
5 “unconscionable.” Jolie argues otherwise, repeating her refrain that “[t]hese are other contracts
6 with other parties about other matters.” Id. But for public figures, the line between business
7 interests and personal conduct is often blurred. Public figures often seek or sign non-disclosure
8 and non-disparagement agreements with terms that may appear onerous to others, in large part, to
9 protect their personal brands and businesses with which they are closely affiliated from costly
10 reputational harm. Indeed, Jolie’s counsel stated in correspondence that Jolie understood that “the
11 primary if not sole concern” that Pitt and Perrin expressed when they allegedly stepped back from
12 deal negotiations was “how this situation might affect a business.” Cherlow Decl., Ex. 8 at 2
13 (emphasis added). Likewise, while Jolie asserts that NDAs with sponsors can never be relevant,
14 Opp. at 14, if those NDAs also contained provisions related to her personal conduct—particularly
15 in connection with a morality clause—it would be probative of the extent to which Jolie truly
16 perceived the proposed NDA at issue in this case as unconscionable or whether she in fact
17 understood that Pitt and his business partner Perrin were seeking the NDA to protect the value of
19 Documents regarding the circumstances of Jolie’s NDAs with third parties are also highly
20 relevant for so long as Jolie is permitted to raise this defense. For example, if Jolie signed NDAs
21 with third parties that limited her (or others’) ability to speak about actual or potential misconduct
22 similar to what she alleges against here against Pitt, and she signed those NDAs after the conduct
23 occurred, a jury would be less likely to credit her purported justification for breaching the parties’
24 agreement not to sell their interests without the other’s consent. Again, this is not mere
25 speculation: After Jolie sold her interests in Miraval to Stoli claiming that the NDA proposed by
26 Pitt’s counsel was ”emotionally devastating,” her divorce lawyer proposed an even broader NDA
27 in connection with resolution of the family court proceeding that would have further limited her
28 “freedom to speak.” But if Jolie gets her way, Pitt will never even discover whether such NDAs
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 exist, let alone present them to a jury.
2 Third, Jolie’s blanket “nothing is comparable” argument has been rejected in several
3 analogous cases. E.g., Davies v. Superior Ct., 36 Cal. 3d 291, 301 (1984) (state records
4 concerning other accidents on a highway that accident victim contended was dangerous are
5 “relevant to the subject matter of a lawsuit arising out of another accident at the same location, and
6 may aid in the parties’ preparation for trial,” notwithstanding state’s “extraordinary” argument to
7 the contrary); Colonial Life & Accident Ins. Co. v. Superior Ct., 31 Cal. 3d 785, 790–91 (1982)
8 (because plaintiff could establish a claim by showing that the acts at issue were a general business
9 practice, “[d]iscovery aimed at determining the frequency of alleged unfair settlement practices is
10 therefore likely to produce evidence directly relevant to the action,” notwithstanding the insurer’s
11 “patently meritless” objections); Lopez v. Watchtower Bible & Tract Soc’y of New York, Inc., 246
12 Cal. App. 4th 566, 593 (2016) (“[T]he fact that the other . . . incidents may have been different
13 from the one that allegedly occurred here does not mean the other perpetrator evidence was not
14 discoverable.”). In other words, because the documents deal with a subject of consequence to the
15 determination of the action, and one which Jolie herself has injected into the matter, the question
16 of “comparability” is not for Jolie to decide, and Jolie’s subjective position on the issue should not
18 In short, establishing that NDAs are a commonplace feature of Jolie’s personal and
19 professional life, and entirely routine for her, goes directly to the credibility of her defense—
20 regardless of the precise terms or subject matter of any one particular NDA.
21 Fourth, Jolie’s argument that “specific past instances of Jolie’s conduct to prove her
22 conduct on this occasion is . . . barred by Evidence Code sections 786, 787, and 1101(a)[,]” (Opp.
23 at 18 n.2), misses the mark. None of those provisions are applicable here—section 786 deals only
24 with “[e]vidence of traits of [] character,” section 787 deals only with “evidence of specific
25 instances of [] conduct relevant only as tending to prove a trait of [] character,” and section
26 1101(a) deals only with “evidence of a person’s character or a trait of his or her character.” Jolie’s
27 use of NDAs plainly is not evidence of her “propensity or tendency to act in a certain way under
28 certain circumstances.” Cal. Prac. Guide Civ. Trials & Ev. Ch. 8E-E (emphasis original); cf.
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Evid. Code § 1105 (evidence of a person’s “habit or custom” is admissible). The evidence sought
2 here goes to the merits of Jolie’s factual contention that she viewed Pitt and Perrin’s request for an
3 NDA as “an abusive and controlling deal-breaker for Jolie,” X-C ¶ 39, not her character.
4 Fifth and finally, Jolie cannot meet her burden to “establish a legally protected privacy
6 threatened intrusion that is serious,” Williams v. Superior Ct., 3 Cal. 5th 531, 552 (2017),
7 particularly given that the operative Protective Order in this case allows her to designate the
8 information as confidential and thereby avoid its improper distribution or filing to the public
9 docket, see Alch v. Superior Ct., 165 Cal. App. 4th 1412, 1432 (2008). Jolie has not offered any
10 declaration or actual evidence concerning what information exists in these NDAs, let alone
11 “specifically identified” a constitutionally protected privacy interest for herself or for third parties,
12 as she is required to do in the first instance. Hill v. Nat’l Collegiate Athletic Assn., 7 Cal. 4th 1, 37
13 (1994). And as for Jolie’s claim for the first time in Opposition that the NDAs may “include
14 Jolie’s compensation or compensation she paid to third parties,” Opp. at 17, Jolie does not cite a
15 single case showing that she (or the third parties) have a privacy right to such information—which
16 is routinely produced in commercial disputes, which would here be subject to a strict protective
17 order, and which Jolie could have asked during the parties’ meet-and-confer negotiations to
19 Further, even if Jolie had satisfied her burden to establish that the requested documents
20 contain information that would pose a serious intrusion upon legally recognized privacy rights if
21 produced pursuant to the operative Protective Order—and she did not—Jolie would also have to
22 “show[] that the [documents] cannot successfully be redacted” to eliminate that risk of “serious”
23 invasion. Snibbe v. Superior Ct., 224 Cal. App. 4th 184, 194–96 (2014); Overstock.com, Inc. v.
24 Goldman Sachs Grp., Inc., 231 Cal. App. 4th 471, 508 (2014) (approving of redaction to protect
25 privacy rights). Jolie has not even tried to do this—indeed, when Plaintiffs suggested during
26 meet-and-confer negotiations that Jolie may redact personally identifying information of third
27 parties (at least in the first instance, and then the parties can meet and confer, if necessary, about
28 such redactions), Jolie rejected that offer too. See Cherlow Decl., Ex. 5 at 2, n.1; id. Ex. 6 at 1.
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 Because Jolie has not “specifically identified” a “serious invasion” of privacy rights at
2 stake, let alone explained why redactions and the protective order would not resolve any concern,
3 she cannot withhold the documents based on privacy rights either. Hill, 7 Cal. 4th at 37; Snibbe,
4 224 Cal. App. 4th at 194–96; Alch, 165 Cal. App. 4th at 1427.
7
By: /s/ John V. Berlinski
8
John V. Berlinski
9
BIRD, MARELLA, RHOW,
10 LINCENBERG, DROOKS & NESSIM, LLP
John V. Berlinski (State Bar No. 208537)
11 Julia B. Cherlow (State Bar No. 290538)
12
WACHTELL, LIPTON, ROSEN & KATZ
13 Jonathan M. Moses (admitted pro hac vice)
Adam L. Goodman (admitted pro hac vice)
14 Jessica L. Layden (admitted pro hac vice)
15 Attorneys for Plaintiffs and Cross-Defendants
16 William B. Pitt and Mondo Bongo, LLC
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PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL
FURTHER RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA JOLIE
1 PROOF OF SERVICE
2 Pitt v. Jolie
Case No. 22STCV06081
3
STATE OF CALIFORNIA, COUNTY OF LOS ANGELES
4
At the time of service, I was over 18 years of age and not a party to this action. I am
5 employed in the County of Los Angeles, State of California. My business address is 1875 Century
Park East, 23rd Floor, Los Angeles, CA 90067-2561.
6
On May 9, 2024, I served the following document(s) described as PLAINTIFFS’ REPLY
7 SEPARATE STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF MOTION TO COMPEL FURTHER
RESPONSES AND PRODUCTION OF DOCUMENTS FROM DEFENDANT ANGELINA
8 JOLIE on the interested parties in this action as follows:
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PROOF OF SERVICE
1 SERVICE LIST
Pitt v. Jolie
2 Case No. 22STCV06081
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PROOF OF SERVICE