Blake Lively wants Justin Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios to pay her $8 million legal bills.
The “It Ends With Us” actress has officially asked a federal judge to direct Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios to cover her massive legal bills that accumulated as she defended herself against Baldoni's lawsuit.
This aggressive legal move comes just after the court dismissed Baldoni’s $400 million defamation case against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds.
The lawsuit was filed after Lively accused Baldoni, her “It Ends With Us” co-star and director, of sexually harassing her on the film's set and running an online campaign against her after she raised complaints.
Baldoni and Wayfarer Studios denied the allegations and claimed Lively and Reynolds used false harassment claims to take control of the film. However, the court later dismissed the defamation suit, ruling that Lively's allegations were protected under litigation privilege.
Although Lively later dropped her own lawsuit against Baldoni and others before the trial began, the settlement did not involve any financial payment.
As per reports, Judge Lewis Liman, earlier this month, ruled that Lively is entitled to seek attorney fees under a 2023 California law that protects people who report sexual abuse from retaliatory defamation lawsuits. At the same time, the judge rejected her request for damages.
Also read: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni settle ‘It Ends With Us’ legal war
According to court documents filed on June 29, Lively's legal team argued that awarding the fees would help discourage retaliatory lawsuits against people who come forward with allegations.
After the judge's earlier ruling, Lively's lead attorneys, Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, welcomed the decision, saying, "Thanks to this landmark decision, those considering using a lawsuit as a weapon of intimidation have been put on notice that there are consequences for doing so. The value of this ruling is in the precedent it creates, the accountability it imposes, and the protection it provides to those who may one day find themselves facing similar retaliation for speaking the truth."
Earlier this month, Baldoni's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, responded to the ruling and said, "Ms. Lively was only awarded limited attorney fees for a single claim as part of a case that lasted only a matter of months, nothing more. Notwithstanding that all of her sexual harassment and defamation claims were thrown out by the court, Ms. Lively then pivoted to exploit a California law that was established to protect real victims in what proved to be a fruitless mission to obtain damages. Once again, she failed."
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