Even though Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni reached a settlement in their legal dispute over alleged sexual misconduct on the set of It Ends With Us and an alleged smear campaign Baldoni led after its release, it hasn’t ended quite yet. Lively still wants Baldoni to pay her attorneys’ fees for the countersuit he filed against her that a judge dismissed.
Because both parties reached the settlement “with prejudice,” meaning Lively cannot refile the same suit against Baldoni, it left the door open to collect compensation for what Lively had to pay her lawyers for their time. She can also seek punitive damages (an amount of money as punishment for effectively wasting her lawyers’ time with a suit a judge deemed meritless) and treble damages, which would award her three times the amount of what a jury would determine to be actual or compensatory damages.
Regardless of the outcome of these claims, though, both sides have agreed not to appeal a judge’s decision.
The celebrities, who co-starred in the movie, which Baldoni directed and Lively produced, reached a settlement nearly a year and a half after Lively first sued Baldoni. Lively had alleged that Baldoni harassed her sexually while making the film, attempting to add sex scenes that weren’t in the script and fostering a sleazy environment, and that when he noticed the media was picking up on how she was keeping a distance from him at promotional events, he organized a PR campaign to discredit her. He countersued for defamation and attempted to wrangle Taylor Swift to testify that Lively had used him to rewrite a scene, but a judge tossed his claims.
Only three of Lively’s claims against Baldoni were set to go to trial, the rest had been dismissed, when jury selection was expected to begin on May 18. The remaining charges were related to breach of contract and retaliation. Nevertheless, the trial was expected to last six to eight weeks. Reports have said that neither side is getting a payout from the agreement.
“By agreeing to this settlement, and waiving their right to appeal, Justin Baldoni and every individual defendant now face personal liability for abusing the legal system to silence and intimidate Ms. Lively,” the actress’ attorneys said in a statement. “And by admitting that Ms. Lively’s concerns ‘deserved to be heard,’ the defendants have ended once and for all the fiction that Ms. Lively ‘fabricated’ claims of sexual harassment and retaliation.”
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