{"id":826686,"date":"2026-08-26T18:02:20","date_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:02:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/826686\/"},"modified":"2026-08-26T18:02:20","modified_gmt":"2026-08-26T18:02:20","slug":"blake-lively-awarded-400000-in-attorneys-fees-in-justin-baldoni-case","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/826686\/","title":{"rendered":"Blake Lively Awarded $400,000 in Attorneys Fees in Justin Baldoni Case"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tA judge on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively<\/a> about $400,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees in her dispute with \u201cIt Ends With Us<\/a>\u201d co-star Justin Baldoni<\/a>, well short of the $8 million she had sought<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively and Baldoni settled their 18-month legal war in May, avoiding a federal trial that was scheduled for later that month. At the time, the only loose end was Lively\u2019s motion for attorneys\u2019 fees for having to defend against Baldoni\u2019s failed defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tJudge Lewis Liman on Wednesday awarded her $363,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees and another $44,000 in court costs. In his ruling<\/a>, the judge found that Lively was entitled only to the \u201creasonable\u201d fees related to defending against the defamation suit.<\/p>\n

\n\tLiman ruled that while the attorneys\u2019 billing rates were \u201cnot unreasonable,\u201d given the high stakes of the case and the complexity of the issues, \u201c(t)he number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tLively had asked for $7.5 million in attorneys\u2019 fees and another $540,000 in court costs. Instead, the judge awarded her just double what the New York Times was awarded for defending itself from Baldoni\u2019s defamation case.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024, alleging that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios had launched an online smear campaign against her in retaliation for raising complaints about sexual harassment on the set of \u201cIt Ends With Us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tBaldoni fired back with a defamation suit, accusing Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of concocting fake allegations as part of an effort to hijack creative control of the film. He also sued the Times for running a story drawn largely on on the civil rights complaint. That suit was dismissed on the grounds that Lively\u2019s claims were protected by litigation privilege and the paper\u2019s coverage was a fair report of the proceedings.<\/p>\n

\n\tLively sought compensation under a 2023 California law meant to discourage frivolous defamation suits against accusers who come forward with allegations of sexual assault. Lively initially asked for treble damages and punitive damages as well, but Liman previously ruled that those were not available under federal law.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A judge on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively about $400,000 in attorneys\u2019 fees in her dispute with \u201cIt Ends…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826687,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[8678,236,88,44292,8680],"class_list":["post-826686","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\/826686","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=826686"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826686\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826687"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826686"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826686"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826686"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}