NEW YORK (AP) — Blake Lively can recover some legal costs from fellow actor and director Justin Baldoni but not punitive damages and other relief she sought after settling her legal claims over their 2024 film “It Ends With Us,” a judge ruled Friday.Judge Lewis J. Liman said in a written ruling that Lively can recover legal fees and costs related to her defense against a countersuit Baldoni brought against her after she sued him in December 2024. In his written ruling Friday, Liman cited a California law designed to protect survivors of sexual harassment and discrimination from retaliatory lawsuits meant to intimidate and silence victims of sexual assault or harassment.The judge 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 the only exception would be if Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios LLC, could prove that Lively acted with malice when she sued him. He said that Baldoni and Wayfarer had provided little evidence to support such a claim and none establishing that she had acted with malice.
