{"id":735905,"date":"2026-06-14T09:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/735905\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T09:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T09:27:08","slug":"justin-baldoni-to-pay-blake-livelys-legal-fees-in-final-legal-ruling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/735905\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Baldoni to Pay Blake Lively’s Legal Fees in Final Legal Ruling"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA judge has ordered Justin Baldoni<\/a> to pay Blake Lively<\/a>\u2018s legal fees, though she is not entitled to extra damages<\/a> related to the dismissal of his $400 million defamation<\/a> suit against his former It Ends With Us<\/a> co-star.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe dispute over damages and fees emerged alongside news that\u00a0Lively and Baldoni had settled<\/a>\u00a0their contentious legal battle in early May, just before the case was set to go to trial. While the primary suit was settled with no monetary compensation<\/a> for either side, Lively\u2019s lawyers preserved their motion to pursue damages and fees related to the dismissal of Baldoni\u2019s suit. They did so under California\u2019s Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act, which was designed to protect accusers by imposing mandatory penalties against plaintiffs who filed unsuccessful defamation suits in response to misconduct complaints.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tOn Friday, the court ruled<\/a> that California\u2019s Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act \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 U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman continued in his ruling. \u201cCompensatory and punitive damages do not fall within that exception.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Lewis denied Lively\u2019s motion for triple damages and punitive damages, ruling that there was no evidence that Baldoni and his production company Wayfarer committed alleged defamatory assertions with malice.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cMs. 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,\u201d Baldoni\u2019s attorney, Bryan Freedman, said in a statement. \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

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\n\tA rep Lively did not immediately return Rolling Stone\u2018s request for comment.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively had originally accused Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, of fostering a toxic, sexually charged work environment that discriminated against women on the set of It Ends With Us. Baldoni rebuffed her accusations and filed a $400 million countersuit, but that was dismissed in June 2025. And while Lively\u2019s original suit contained harassment allegations against Baldoni, they were among the many claims<\/a> the judge tossed in April when the case seemed headed for trial.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn the lead-up to the dispute over these additional damages, both parties submitted letters on the matter in late May, while a hearing was held on June 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tIn their filing, Lively\u2019s lawyers characterized her as the \u201cprevailing defendant,\u201d and said she was \u201centitled not just to attorneys\u2019 fees and costs but also to compensatory damages tripled and punitive damages.\u201d At the June 1 hearing, her lawyer compared the law to anti-SLAPP laws that are supposed to deter defamation suits that are actually designed to stifle speech (per Courthouse News Service<\/a>).<\/p>\n

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\n\tBaldoni\u2019s lawyers, meanwhile, rebuffed Lively\u2019s claims, calling the motion \u201can end run around the jury trial that was eliminated by settlement in this case.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tThis article was updated with a statement from Bryan Freedman, an attorney for Justin Baldoni.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge has ordered Justin Baldoni to pay Blake Lively\u2018s legal fees, though she is not entitled to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":735906,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[10682,49,48,75,48591,10683],"class_list":["post-735905","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-entertainment","tag-blake-lively","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-it-ends-with-us","tag-justin-baldoni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735905","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=735905"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/735905\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/735906"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=735905"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=735905"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=735905"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}