{"id":418960,"date":"2026-05-09T03:50:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:50:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418960\/"},"modified":"2026-05-09T03:50:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T03:50:14","slug":"justin-baldonis-lawyers-seek-to-block-blake-livelys-damages-push","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/418960\/","title":{"rendered":"Justin Baldoni\u2019s lawyers seek to block Blake Lively\u2019s damages push"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justin Baldoni\u2019s attorneys asked a judge on Friday to reject any future proceedings related to Blake Lively\u2019s request to recover legal fees and compensatory damages that were incurred during the \u201cIt Ends With Us\u201d legal dispute.<\/p>\n

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Though the former co-stars announced a surprise settlement earlier this week<\/a>, Lively\u2019s legal team said it is seeking legal fees from Baldoni and his partners related to a countersuit Baldoni filed in January 2025 (which was later tossed out).<\/p>\n

The terms of the stars\u2019 settlement were not disclosed. A source familiar with the matter confirmed to NBC News that no money changed hands.<\/p>\n

Ellyn Garofalo, an attorney for Baldoni, urged U.S. District Judge Lewis J. Liman to reject Lively\u2019s request, arguing that she has already settled her remaining claims without Baldoni or his studio, Wayfarer, \u201cpaying a cent of the $300 million in damages she was demanding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Baldoni\u2019s team said the \u201cIt Ends With Us\u201d legal fight, which lasted a year-and-a-half, should end with the court\u2019s existing rulings, rather than another sequel of filings and arguments.<\/p>\n

His attorneys argue that Lively failed to explain why further arguments were necessary after previously insisting the court already had enough information to rule on her request for attorney\u2019s fees, punitive damages and other relief under California Civil Code Section 47.1.<\/p>\n

The statute is designed to protect people who publicly report allegations of sexual misconduct from retaliatory defamation claims.<\/p>\n

NBC News has reached out to Lively\u2019s attorneys for comment.<\/p>\n

In Baldoni\u2019s $400 million countersuit, which he filed in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York, the actor-director claimed that Lively and her \u201cDeadpool\u201d actor husband Ryan Reynolds tried to wreck his reputation and accused her of using her grievances as a way to \u201cseize control\u201d of the movie.<\/p>\n

Liman dismissed the case.<\/a><\/p>\n

In April, Liman also dismissed most of Lively\u2019s claims against Baldoni, including harassment, defamation and conspiracy. He allowed three of her claims to proceed to trial: breach of contract, retaliation and aiding and abetting in retaliation.<\/p>\n

While Liman formally signed off on the settlement, Lively\u2019s lawyers on Thursday requested to file a supplemental brief \u201cto address any impact of the Court\u2019s intervening rulings\u201d on their request for compensatory damages and legal fees, and to propose procedures for \u201cadjudicating\u201d the damages.<\/p>\n

Baldoni\u2019s attorneys previously dismissed the remaining fight over the defamation case legal fees as \u201ca very narrow issue.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Justin Baldoni\u2019s attorneys asked a judge on Friday to reject any future proceedings related to Blake Lively\u2019s request…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418961,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[430,156,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-418960","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418960","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418960"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418960\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418961"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418960"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418960"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418960"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}