Published : 27 Aug 2026, 10:37 PM
Updated : 08 Sep 2026, 09:36 AM
A federal judge has awarded Blake Lively just over $407,000 of the $8 million in legal fees she sought from actor-director Justin Baldoni, ruling that a California law protecting harassment survivors from retaliatory lawsuits applied only to a limited portion of her costs.
US District Judge Lewis Liman in Manhattan said the anti-retaliation law, designed to protect victims from lawsuits intended to intimidate or silence them, covered only fees incurred defending against Baldoni’s defamation claims rather than all of his counterclaims.
He awarded Lively $363,245 in attorneys’ fees and $44,206 in costs, The Independent reports.
Lively sued Baldoni in December 2024, accusing him of sexual harassment, retaliation and invasion of privacy during production of their 2024 film “It Ends With Us”.
Baldoni denied the allegations, saying Lively had fabricated them in an attempt to seize creative control of the project.
He and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, later filed counterclaims against Lively and her husband, actor Ryan Reynolds, alleging civil extortion, defamation and economic interference.
Liman dismissed Baldoni’s countersuit in June 2025.
Months later, he dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims, ruling that she had worked on the film as an independent contractor rather than an employee.
The parties settled in early May, two weeks before a scheduled trial, issuing a joint statement saying Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard”.
“It Ends With Us”, adapted from Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel about domestic violence, opened in August 2024 to strong box-office returns, although the legal feud between its two stars drew nearly as much attention as the film itself.
