{"id":700201,"date":"2026-06-12T18:27:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700201\/"},"modified":"2026-06-12T18:27:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-12T18:27:09","slug":"blake-lively-granted-attorney-fees-in-justin-baldoni-lawsuit","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/700201\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Lively Granted Attorney Fees in Justin Baldoni Lawsuit"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tBlake Lively<\/a> won a partial victory on Friday, as a judge ordered Wayfarer Studios to pay her attorneys fees for having to defend against Justin Baldoni<\/a>\u2018s failed defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe judge, Lewis Liman, ruled<\/a> that Lively was entitled to recover her defense costs under a 2023 California law meant to protect sexual abuse accusers from retaliatory defamation suits.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiman, however, denied Lively\u2019s motion for triple damages and punitive damages, finding that those remedies are not available under federal law. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cIt Ends With Us<\/a>\u201d co-stars had previously settled <\/a>all other disputes in their protracted and costly legal war, just two weeks before the case was due to go to trial in federal court in New York. The only loose end was Lively\u2019s fee motion under the Protecting Survivors from Weaponized Defamation Lawsuits Act.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively had accused Baldoni, who also directed the 2024 film, of sexually harassing her on set and of retaliating against her for complaining about it with an online whisper campaign meant to tarnish her reputation. <\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni and his Wayfarer Studios allies fired back with a defamation suit, accusing Lively of manufacturing false claims of harassment in order to seize control of the film. Baldoni\u2019s lawsuit was dismissed a year ago, as the judge found that Lively\u2019s allegations were protected under the litigation privilege.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively then filed a motion for attorneys fees, triple damages, and punitive damages under the California law. That motion was fully briefed and awaiting a ruling when the case settled in May, with Lively receiving nothing for her claims.<\/p>\n

\n\tAs part of the settlement, both sides agreed to abide by Liman\u2019s ruling on the fee motion and not to appeal.<\/p>\n

\n\tIn a statement from her attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, Lively\u2019s team declared victory.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cBlake Lively won her motion under Civil Code Section 47.1,\u201d they wrote. \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 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Blake Lively won a partial victory on Friday, as a judge ordered Wayfarer Studios to pay her attorneys…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":629788,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[8678,236,88,44292,8680],"class_list":["post-700201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-celebrities","tag-blake-lively","tag-celebrities","tag-entertainment","tag-it-ends-with-us","tag-justin-baldoni"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=700201"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/700201\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/629788"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=700201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=700201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=700201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}