A federal judge has dismissed most of the claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit that actress Blake Lively filed against her It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni.<\/p>\n
Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of 13 allegations in Lively\u2019s case, including harassment and defamation.<\/p>\n
He left in place three claims against Baldoni \u2013 breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting in retaliation \u2013 which will now go to a civil trial in New York on 18 May.<\/p>\n
The Hollywood legal battle began in 2024 when Lively sued Baldoni, accusing him of harassment and a smear campaign on the set of their hit movie. He denied it and counter-sued.<\/p>\n
A member of Lively\u2019s legal team, Sigrid McCawley, told the BBC\u2019s US partner CBS the case \u201chas always been and will remain focused on the devastating retaliation and the extraordinary steps the defendants took to destroy\u201d the actress\u2019 reputation.<\/p>\n
She noted that the sexual harassment claims were dropped, \u201cnot because the defendants did nothing wrong\u201d, but because of a technicality.<\/p>\n
Lively plans to testify during the trial, McCawley said, and would continue \u201cto shine a light on this vicious form of online retaliation\u201d.<\/p>\n
The BBC has contacted Baldoni\u2019s lawyers for comment.<\/p>\n
A judge last year dismissed Baldoni\u2019s $400m (\u00a3295m) counter-lawsuit against Lively, which alleged civil extortion, defamation and invasion of privacy.<\/p>\n
The case stems from interactions between Baldoni and Lively on the set of \u2018It Ends With Us\u2019, an adaptation of a best-selling Colleen Hoover novel.<\/p>\n
The film features Lively as the main character, Lily Bloom, a young woman who grew up witnessing domestic abuse and finds herself in the same position years later.<\/p>\n
Lively\u2019s legal team have accused Baldoni and his film studio, Wayfarer, of planning to wreck her reputation, including by social media manipulation and using friendly journalists to sow certain narratives.<\/p>\n
She shared details of the allegations in a New York Times article published before her lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Lively filed a lawsuit against Baldoni\u2019s Wayfarer Studios in December 2024, alleging he sexually harassed her on set and retaliated against her for bringing those complaints, among other allegations.<\/p>\n
In his 152-page opinion on Thursday, Judge Liman listed a host of reasons for dismissing the many allegations against Baldoni.<\/p>\n
For one, he said, harassment claims Lively brought against Baldoni under California law did not hold up because the filming \u2013 where the misconduct allegedly occurred \u2013 took place in New Jersey.<\/p>\n
\u201cNone of these acts or occurrences provides the \u2018substantial connection\u2019 to California needed to sustain Lively\u2019s sexual harassment claims,\u201d Liman wrote.<\/p>\n
The judge also said Lively was ineligible to bring certain claims of harassment and retaliation because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee.<\/p>\n
Lively had also accused Baldoni\u2019s lawyer, Bryan Freedman, of defaming her in a series of statements.<\/p>\n
But Liman said that because those statements and others directly referred to the allegations Baldoni was facing in court, Lively\u2019s claim of defamation did not hold up.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo be sure, much of what Lively complains about is not actionable. The Wayfarer Parties were entitled to engage public relations and crisis management specialists to protect their reputations,\u201d Liman wrote. \u201cHowever, certain conduct at least arguably crossed the line.\u201d<\/p>\n
The judge said some of the retaliation claims Lively brought, in which she accuses Baldoni of engaging in a \u201ccoordinated campaign\u201d to attack her character and reputation, were worthy of trial.<\/p>\n
Shortly after Lively\u2019s lawsuit, Baldoni brought defamation cases against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist, claiming they were aiming to ruin his career and reputation with the allegations, as well as the New York Times.<\/p>\n
He alleged that Lively \u201cstole the film\u201d from him and Wayfarer by threatening not to promote it, and that she and others perpetuated a false narrative that Baldoni had harassed her and launched a smear campaign against her.<\/p>\n
But in June, Liman dismissed Baldoni\u2019s lawsuit, saying his team had \u201cnot adequately alleged that Lively\u2019s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions\u201d.<\/p>\n
Evidence in the legal battle has involved texts between Lively and Taylor Swift about Baldoni.<\/p>\n
The post Judge dismisses most of Blake Lively\u2019s claims in harassment lawsuit against Baldoni<\/a> appeared first on KBC Digital<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A federal judge has dismissed most of the claims in a sexual harassment lawsuit that actress Blake Lively filed against her It Ends with Us co-star Justin Baldoni. Judge Lewis Liman threw out 10 of 13 allegations in Lively\u2019s case, including harassment and defamation. He left in place three claims against Baldoni \u2013 breach of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-136471","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136471","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=136471"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/136471\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=136471"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=136471"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/chezaspin.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=136471"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}