Blake Livelys Legal Fees to Be Paid for by Justin Baldoni, Court Orders

Blake Lively will have her legal fees paid by Justin Baldoni but isn’t entitled to damages for harm caused by his defamation claims, a court found Friday.

Under the settlement reached last month, Baldoni waived his right to appeal the court’s order last year dismissing his $400 million lawsuit against Lively. The deal didn’t include monetary compensation but left open the door for the actress to recover her legal costs and pursue damages under a California law intended to shield sexual harassment victims from retaliatory defamation claims.

That law, the court said, “does not create an end run around the entire set of carefully crafted federal procedural rules designed to protect the rights of the parties.”

“It instead establishes a narrow exception to the usual litigation process for a specific and limited kind of relief,” wrote U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman in the ruling. “Compensatory and punitive damages do not fall within that exception.”

The order decides the last legal issue in the case after Lively and Baldoni reached an 11th-hour settlement to avert a headline-splashing trial over alleged sexual harassment on the set of It Ends With Us. Now, the court will asses how much in legal fees she should be paid, with her lawyers submitting a breakdown of their hourly rates and how long they worked on the case.

The bill could be sky-high considering the pedigree of lawyers Lively had on her legal team, led by heavyweight litigators Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson.

“Today’s 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 the California law she asserted, they said in a statement.

The lawyers added that Lively is gratified to show how the statute creates “a path for survivors to hold accountable those who weaponize online attacks and retaliatory lawsuits to intimidate and silence survivors.”

Under that law, the actress moved for attorneys’ fees, plus treble and punitive damages, for harm caused by Baldoni’s defamation claims. The statute, which went into effect in 2024, is intended to shield sexual harassment and assault victims when they report misconduct as long as they had a reasonable basis for their claims.

In the ruling, the court granted Lively’s bid to recover legal fees since she acted “without malice” when she made her sexual misconduct complaint.

“Allegations are insufficient on their own to demonstrate that statements were in fact made with malice,” the judge wrote. “That determination requires some evidence.”

Lawyers for Baldoni and Wayfarer argued that some statements Lively advanced were misleading or, in some instances, outright false.

While the court denied damages in this case, it left open the possibility for Lively to seek additional damages through another lawsuit or counterclaim against Baldoni or Wayfarer, which didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

Read Lively’s full statement below:

Blake Lively won her motion under Civil Code Section 47.1. Today’s 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’ fees and costs and has explained that a prevailing defendant under Section 47.1 may seek damages using different procedural mechanisms. The parties’ settlement agreement expressly preserves Ms. Lively’s 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.