Los Angeles [US], August 26 (ANI): A judge on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively approximately USD 400,000 in attorneys’ fees in her legal battle with “It Ends With Us” co-star Justin Baldoni, significantly less than the USD 8 million she had requested.
Lively and Baldoni settled their 18-month legal war in May, avoiding a federal trial that was scheduled for later that month. At the time, the only loose end was Lively’s motion for attorneys’ fees for having to defend against Baldoni’s failed defamation suit, as per Variety.
Judge Lewis Liman on Wednesday awarded Blake Lively USD 363,000 in attorneys’ fees, along with an additional USD 44,000 in court costs. In his ruling, Liman said Lively was entitled only to “reasonable” legal fees incurred while defending herself against the defamation lawsuit.
Liman ruled that while the attorneys’ billing rates were “not unreasonable,” given the high stakes of the case and the complexity of the issues, “(t)he number of hours for which Lively seeks reimbursement is unreasonable.”
Lively had asked for USD 7.5 million in attorneys’ fees and another USD 540,000 in court costs. Instead, the judge awarded her just double what the New York Times was awarded for defending itself from Baldoni’s defamation case.
Lively filed a complaint with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024, alleging that Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios had launched an online smear campaign against her in retaliation for raising complaints about sexual harassment on the set of “It Ends With Us,” according to Variety.
Baldoni fired back with a defamation suit, accusing Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, of concocting fake allegations as part of an effort to hijack creative control of the film. He also sued the Times for running a story drawn largely on on the civil rights complaint. That suit was dismissed on the grounds that Lively’s claims were protected by litigation privilege and the paper’s coverage was a fair report of the proceedings.
Lively sought the fees under a 2023 California law designed to deter frivolous defamation lawsuits against people who publicly make sexual assault allegations. (ANI)
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