Legal News
Blake Lively’s Claim She Can Still Seek Damages From Justin Baldoni Isn’t ‘Accurate’: Time to ‘Move On’
Blake Lively still isn’t giving up her legal battle against Justin Baldoni.
The Gossip Girl alum, 38, settled her legal battle with her It Ends With Us costar and director’s production company, Wayfarer Studios, in May, after first filing claims of sexual harassment and retaliation against Baldoni and others in December 2024. And on Friday, June 12, a judge ordered Baldoni, 42, to pay her legal fees related to a countersuit he filed, which was dismissed last June — but denied her request for damages.
Still, her attorneys told Deadline that in his ruling, Judge Lewis J. Liman “explained that a prevailing defendant under Section 47.1 may seek damages using different procedural mechanisms” and argued that their settlement agreement “preserves Ms. Lively’s rights to obtain those damages.”
The Jane the Virgin alum’s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, doesn’t agree. “We don’t believe that’s accurate at all,” he said during an appearance on the June 12 episode of The Megyn Kelly Show, noting that the settlement agreement gave Judge Liman “the right to do what he felt was appropriate… If he felt it was appropriate to award damages then he would have done so.”
As per the settlement agreement obtained by Star, the parties agreed not to appeal a ruling on the specific motion that Lively had already filed. In Liman’s ruling, he notes that she had “chosen the wrong procedural vehicle” to pursue damages. The settlement agreement makes no mention of whether she could choose to pursue damages in another way.
But Freedman told host Megyn Kelly that everyone “should move on with their lives.”
“I’m hoping it’s finally over with respect to allowing Blake to move on, allowing Justin and the other parties to move on,” he continued. “There are still some collateral matters involved in this that have to be resolved, but … hopefully people will wish the best for each other and come to that place that says, ‘You know what, enough is enough, we can agree to disagree.'”
