{"id":732622,"date":"2026-06-12T21:11:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:11:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732622\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T21:11:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T21:11:08","slug":"blake-lively-to-have-legal-fees-paid-for-by-justin-baldoni-wayfarer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/732622\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Lively to Have Legal Fees Paid for by Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBlake Lively<\/a> will have her legal fees paid by Justin Baldoni<\/a> but isn\u2019t entitled to damages for harm caused by his defamation claims, a court found Friday.<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder the settlement reached last month, Baldoni waived his right to appeal the court\u2019s order last year dismissing his $400 million lawsuit against Lively. The deal didn\u2019t include monetary compensation but left open the door for the actress to recover her legal costs and pursue damages under a California law intended to shield sexual harassment victims from retaliatory defamation claims. <\/p>\n

\n\tThat law, the court said, \u201cdoes not create an end run around the entire set of carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cIt instead establishes a narrow exception to the usual litigation process for a specific and limited kind of relief,\u201d wrote U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in the ruling. \u201cCompensatory and punitive damages do not fall within that exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe order decides the last legal issue in the case after Lively and Baldoni reached an 11th-hour settlement to avert a headline-splashing trial over alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us. Now, the court will asses how much in legal fees she should be paid, with her lawyers submitting a breakdown of their hourly rates and how long they worked on the case. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe bill could be sky-high considering the pedigree of lawyers Lively had on her legal team, led by heavyweight litigators Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cToday\u2019s ruling makes it clear that Ms. Lively brought her claims in good faith, that there was no evidence she acted with malice, and that she is the prevailing defendant\u201d under the California law she asserted, they said in a statement.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe lawyers added that Lively is gratified to show how the statute creates \u201ca path for survivors to hold accountable those who weaponize online attacks and retaliatory lawsuits to intimidate and silence survivors.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tUnder that law, the actress moved for attorneys\u2019 fees, plus treble and punitive damages, for harm caused by Baldoni\u2019s defamation claims. The statute, which went into effect in 2024, is intended to shield sexual harassment and assault victims when they report misconduct as long as they had a reasonable basis for their claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the ruling, the court granted Lively\u2019s bid to recover legal fees since she acted \u201cwithout malice\u201d when she made her sexual misconduct complaint.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cAllegations are insufficient on their own to demonstrate that statements were in fact made with malice,\u201d the judge wrote. \u201cThat determination requires some evidence.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLawyers for Baldoni and Wayfarer argued that some statements Lively advanced were misleading or, in some instances, outright false.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe fought and won against a coordinated effort built on allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation, and a smear campaign that never happened,\u201d said Bryan Freedman, a lawyer for Baldoni, in a statement. \u201cMs. Lively demanded over 300 million in fees and damages, had 10 of her 13 claims dismissed, she then chose to settle and received nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe added, \u201cThroughout this process, innocent people had their reputations unfairly tarnished. There was no sexual harassment. There was no retaliation. There was no smear campaign. The court recognized it, the record reflects it, and we have maintained it from the very beginning.\u00a0 We would not hesitate to stand up for the truth again.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWhile the court denied damages in this case, it left open the possibility for Lively to seek additional damages through another lawsuit or counterclaim against Baldoni or Wayfarer, which didn\u2019t immediately respond to a request for comment. <\/p>\n

\n\tRead Lively\u2019s full statement below: <\/p>\n

\n\tBlake Lively won her motion under Civil Code Section 47.1. Today\u2019s ruling makes it clear that Ms. Lively brought her claims in good faith, that there was no evidence she acted with malice, and that she is the prevailing defendant under Section 47.1. The Court is awarding Ms. Lively attorneys\u2019 fees and costs and has explained that a prevailing defendant under Section 47.1 may seek damages using different procedural mechanisms. The parties\u2019 settlement agreement expressly preserves Ms. Lively\u2019s rights to obtain those damages. Ms. Lively is gratified that her lawsuit shows how Section 47.1 and laws like it create a path for survivors to hold accountable those who weaponize online attacks and retaliatory lawsuits to intimidate and silence survivors.<\/p>\n

\n\tRead Baldoni\u2019s full statement below:<\/p>\n

\n\tWe fought and won against a coordinated effort built on allegations of sexual harassment, retaliation, and a smear campaign that never happened. Ms. Lively demanded over 300 million in fees and damages, had 10 of her 13 claims dismissed, she then chose to settle and received nothing.<\/p>\n

\n\tNotwithstanding that all of her sexual harassment and defamation claims were thrown out by the court, Ms. Lively then pivoted to exploit a California law that was established to protect real victims in what proved to be a fruitless mission to obtain damages.\u00a0 Once again, she failed. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tMy clients got blindsided by a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist and was threatened by one of the most famous movie stars, who tried to rip away their life\u2019s work and pristine reputations.\u00a0 Not only were we successful in exposing the truth of their actions, but by the consistent dissemination of facts and evidence, we made sure that justice prevailed.<\/p>\n

\n\tMs. Lively was only awarded limited attorney fees for a single claim as part of a case that lasted only a matter of months, nothing more.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout this process, innocent people had their reputations unfairly tarnished. There was no sexual harassment. There was no retaliation. There was no smear campaign. The court recognized it, the record reflects it, and we have maintained it from the very beginning.\u00a0 We would not hesitate to stand up for the truth again.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blake Lively will have her legal fees paid by Justin Baldoni but isn\u2019t entitled to damages for harm…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":732623,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[64,63,26705,447,134,26706],"class_list":["post-732622","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-blake-lively","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-justin-baldoni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732622","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732622"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732622\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/732623"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732622"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732622"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732622"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}