Blake Lively is seeking $8 million in legal costs from the actor and director Justin Baldoni after settling their acrimonious production dispute for their 2024 film ‘It Ends With Us’.Lively’s lawyers disclosed the amount, which covered nearly $7.5 million in attorney fees from two law firms representing her and about $500,000 in other expenses, in a court filing Tuesday.
Blake Lively’s lawyers are asking Justin Baldoni to pay up
One of Lively’s lawyers, Michael Gottlieb, wrote in a court filing that he charged her an average hourly rate of $2,187, a discount from her usual $2,795 an hour. He said he billed 224 hours to work on his defense of Baldoni’s counterclaim, totaling $457,000 in fees.Baldoni and her production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, “employed scorched earth litigation tactics designed to exhaust Lively’s resources,” her attorneys wrote in their filing.“They could have stopped (and offered to reimburse Lively) at any time. Having refused to do so, they should be ordered to reimburse Lively for all costs, attorney fees and expenses they wrongfully forced her to incur,” they wrote.
The judge has yet to approve the amount
In allowing Lively to recover legal fees, the judge cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits designed to intimidate and silence victims.Liman said the law requires the plaintiff to pay the defendant’s legal fees and costs if a defamation claim filed in response to a lawsuit is dismissed, even if the facts of the case have not been developed through the collection of evidence.Liman said an exception would be if Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios could prove that malice fueled Lively’s claims, but had not produced any evidence to prove it.The judge still has to approve the amount he is asking for.
The judge rejects the demand for triple compensation
In their court filing, Lively’s lawyers said $4.5 million should be paid to Gottlieb’s firm, Willkie Farr & Gallagher, and about $3 million should go to the firm Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, LLP.The judge rejected Lively’s claims to treble damages and pursue punitive damages under California law as well, saying they did not fall within “federal procedural rules carefully designed to protect the rights of parties.”
Blake Lively and Justin Bald
Lively and Baldoni settled last month just before a trial began in Manhattan federal court over Lively’s claims he made an effort to damage her public reputation and credibility after she accused him of sexually harassing her while filming the movie.Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied her claims.Lively did not receive any money in the settlement, but a judge later ruled that she is entitled to recover some legal fees she incurred after Baldoni countersued 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 set of “It Ends With Us.”Weeks later, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her ‘Deadpool’ actor husband Ryan Reynolds – and his libel and extortion publicist.Baldoni denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed that Lively made up the complaints about his behavior as part of an effort to take creative control of the film.Judge Lewis J. Liman dismissed Baldoni’s counterclaim last year and later 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 ‘Finish With Us’
‘It Ends With Us’, an adaptation of Colleen Hoover’s best-selling 2016 novel about a relationship involving domestic violence, opened in August 2024 and exceeded box office expectations.