Lawyers for Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni attempted to hash out pretrial issues on Tuesday in New York City ahead of the scheduled civil trial stemming from Lively’s allegations of sexual harassment during the filming of the 2024 film It Ends With Us.
The highly anticipated civil trial set to begin in May will be limited to Lively’s retaliation claims against Baldoni’s production company after a judge threw out her sexual harassment claims earlier this month.
Lively and Baldoni are both expected to testify about Lively’s claims but neither actor attended Tuesday’s hearing.
Baldoni and his company, Wayfarer Studios, have denied Lively’s allegations and Baldoni was dismissed as a defendant in U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman’s April 2 ruling, when he threw out Lively’s sexual harassment claims.
The case is proceeding to trial on Lively’s claims that Wayfarer retaliated against her for complaining about misconduct and organized what she refers to as a “smear campaign” aimed at destroying her reputation and career prospects through negative social media posts.
During Tuesday’s three-hour hearing, legal teams discussed arguments over the admissibility of an expert report commissioned by Lively’s lawyers estimating that she suffered as much as US$230 million in lost earnings and profits due to the alleged smear campaign, and at least $40 million from reputational harm, according to Reuters.
A lawyer for Lively, Naeun Rim, claimed that Wayfarer’s attacks on Lively erased years’ worth of investment in her hair care product line and other companies that were built on her reputation, per Reuters.
Lively’s lawyers reportedly argued that she missed out on the opportunity to make up to $35 million directing and acting in a sequel to It Ends With Us.
“Baldoni had suggested at one point that Ms. Lively would direct the sequel, and the lead actress would be compensated more,” Rim said, according to Reuters.
Wayfarer lawyer Fabien Thayamballi reportedly called those “pie-in-the-sky” figures that did not reflect Lively’s past earnings.
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“Ms. Lively has a track record of brands that have not succeeded,” Amir Kaltgrad, a lawyer for Baldoni, said Tuesday.
Liman concluded Tuesday’s hearing without ruling.
Jury selection for the civil trial is scheduled to begin May 18, with opening statements scheduled to be heard the same day.
In the proposed jury instructions, filed on April 10, the legal docs state that Lively “seeks damages from more than one defendant” and the jury “must determine the liability of each defendant to Ms. Lively separately.”
Liman previously tossed out 10 of Lively’s 13 claims against Baldoni this month. He is allowing three to move forward: breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting in retaliation.
In an analysis of the sexual harassment claims, the judge said Lively’s claims had to be viewed in the context of the movie they were working on.
“Lively claims that during filming, Baldoni leaned in and gestured as if he was intending to kiss her, and that he kissed her forehead, rubbed his face and mouth against her neck, put his thumb to her mouth and flicked her lower lip, caressed her, and leaned into her neck, saying ‘it smells good,’” the judge wrote.
He said there was no question that the conduct would support a hostile work environment claim if it happened on a factory floor or in an executive suite.
However, the judge noted, Baldoni was “acting in the scene.”
“Assuming he was improvising, the conduct was not so far beyond what might reasonably be expected to take place between two characters during a slow dancing scene such that an inference of hostile treatment on the basis of sex would arise. At least in isolation, the conduct was directed to Lively’s character rather than to Lively herself,” he wrote.
“Creative artists, no less than comedy room writers, must have some amount of space to experiment within the bounds of an agreed script without fear of being held liable for sexual harassment.”
Liman said that “Lively contends that the harassment also continued after filming.”
“In particular, she claims that the Wayfarer Parties ‘planned, coordinated, and implemented’ a smear campaign from California which was intended to cast her in a false light, discredit her claims, and damage her career,” Liman wrote in his April 2 order.
In his analysis, Liman said the Wayfarer parties argue that they took no adverse employment action against Lively and that their actions were “instead reasonably intended to protect themselves and their reputations from unfair and false attacks.”
Lively said that Wayfarer “engaged in a coordinated attempt to attack her character and destroy her reputation in ways extending beyond mere ‘reasonable defensive measures,’ according to the legal docs.
Lively and Baldoni’s legal drama began in December 2024, when Lively accused Baldoni of sexual harassment and retaliation, first in a complaint. Then in a lawsuit about a week later, Baldoni claimed in a January court filing that he felt pressured by Lively and husband Ryan Reynolds’ “megacelebrity friend” to approve scene revisions after a meeting at Lively and Reynolds’ home.
Baldoni sued Lively and Reynolds for defamation in January 2025. That lawsuit came the same day that Baldoni sued the New York Times for libel, alleging the paper worked with Lively to smear him.
Since the legal battle began, Baldoni’s legal team made text messages from Lively and Reynolds public on a website, titled The Lawsuit Info, created to help defend him.
On the website, published in early February 2025, Baldoni also shared an amended complaint in his case against Lively, Reynolds, Lively’s PR firm and the New York Times, as well as a 168-page document, called “Timeline of relevant events,” related to the case and the production of the film.
The timeline includes emails and text messages that were allegedly sent leading up to and during the movie’s filming.
In late March, Lively asked a judge to dismiss Baldoni’s countersuit, calling his claims “vengeful and rambling,” after she filed the lawsuit against him for sexual harassment and retaliation.
Last June, a judge dismissed Baldoni’s $400-million defamation claim against Lively and Reynolds after finding that her accusations of sexual harassment were legally protected, making them exempt from libel claims.
Lively’s lawyers called the dismissal “a total victory and complete vindication for Blake Lively, along with those that Justin Baldoni and the Wayfarer Parties dragged into their retaliatory lawsuit, including Ryan Reynolds, Leslie Sloane and The New York Times.”
— with files from Reuters and The Associated Press
