Blake Lively is seeking USD 8 million in legal costs from actor and director Justin Baldoni after resolving their dispute over the acrimonious production of their 2024 film ‘It Ends With Us’.Lively’s lawyers disclosed the amount, covering nearly USD 7.5 million in attorney’s fees from two law firms that represented her and about USD 500,000 in other expenses, in a court filing Tuesday.
Blake Lively’s lawyers ask Justin Baldoni to pay
One of Lively’s lawyers, Michael Gottlieb, wrote in a court declaration that he charged her an average hourly rate of USD 2,187 – a discount from his usual USD 2,795 per hour. He said he billed 224 hours for work on her defense to Baldoni’s countersuit, totaling USD 457,000 in fees.Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, “employed scorched-earth litigation tactics designed to drain Lively’s resources,” her lawyers wrote in their filing.“They could have ended it (and offered to reimburse Lively) at any time. Having refused to do so, they should be ordered to reimburse Lively for all of the costs, attorney’s fees, and expenses they improperly forced her to incur,” they wrote.
Judge still to approve amount
In allowing Lively to recover legal costs, the judge cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits meant to intimidate and silence victims.Liman said the law requires that the plaintiff must pay the defendant’s legal fees and costs if a defamation claim made in response to a lawsuit is dismissed, even if the facts of the case have not been developed through the gathering of evidence.Liman said an exception would be if Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios, could prove malice fueled Lively’s claims, but that they had produced no evidence to show that.The judge must still approve the amount she is seeking.
Judge rejects claim to triple damages
In their court filing, Lively’s lawyers said USD 4.5 million should be paid to Gottlieb’s firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and about USD 3 million should go to the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.The judge rejected Lively’s claims to triple any damages and pursue punitive damages as well under the California law, saying that they did not fall within “carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.”
Blake Lively and Justin Bald
Lively and Baldoni settled last month just before a trial was to start in federal court in Manhattan on Lively’s claims that he engineered an effort to damage her public reputation and credibility after she accused him of sexually harassing her while shooting the movie.Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied her claims.Lively received no money in the settlement, but a judge subsequently ruled that she is entitled to recover some legal costs she incurred after Baldoni filed a countersuit against her.
About Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni’s legal dispute
Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, accusing them of conspiring with publicists to preemptively destroy her reputation after she privately accused him of sexual harassment on the “It Ends With Us” set.Weeks later, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her husband – ‘Deadpool’ actor Ryan Reynolds – and their publicist of defamation and extortion.Baldoni denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behavior were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie.Judge Lewis J. Liman threw out Baldoni’s countersuit last year and then dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, saying she could not bring them because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set.
About ‘It Ends With Us’
‘It Ends With Us’, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s bestselling 2016 novel about a relationship devolving into domestic violence, was released in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.
