Blake Lively’s Legal Fight Isn’t Over After Settlement

The settlement between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni may have ended the headline-grabbing trial everyone was bracing for — but it didn’t end the legal battle. Not quite.

Court documents filed Thursday reveal that Lively preserved one significant claim when the two sides reached their deal Monday: a motion for attorneys’ fees and damages under California Civil Code Section 47.1, a 2024 law specifically designed to protect sexual harassment accusers from retaliatory defamation suits. That motion, filed last September, was the one piece of the sprawling legal feud left untouched by the settlement — and it could still carry enormous financial consequences for Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.

Under the California statute, Lively is seeking attorneys’ fees, litigation costs, compensatory damages, punitive damages, and treble damages — meaning certain financial awards could automatically be tripled. Her team is characterizing Baldoni’s $400 million defamation lawsuit against her as “the prototypical suit” the California Legislature intended to deter when it passed the law. And because Baldoni waived his right to appeal Judge Lewis Liman’s earlier ruling dismissing that defamation case, the judgment is final — clearing one of the key legal hurdles Lively needed to clear before pursuing the fee award.

What Lively’s Team Is Actually Arguing

Lively’s lawyers, Michael Gottlieb and Esra Hudson, came out swinging Thursday, calling the settlement “a resounding victory for Blake Lively.” In their statement, they argued that by agreeing to language in the joint settlement statement acknowledging that Lively’s concerns “deserved to be heard,” Baldoni’s side effectively conceded that she had a reasonable basis for her claims — which is precisely what the California law requires.

“Justin Baldoni and every individual defendant now face personal liability for abusing the legal system to silence and intimidate Ms. Lively,” Gottlieb and Hudson wrote. “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.”

Attorney Sigrid McCawley, who also represents Lively, framed the ongoing motion in even broader terms. “This is really a space where she’s been able to do some great good for survivors, and she wants to continue that work,” McCawley told Variety. “This is about so much more to her.”

McCawley added: “This was a horrific thing she had to live through, and she’s been so brave. This is really the icing on the cake in so many ways.”

Lively is also said to be advocating for the Speak Your Truth Act, a pending New York State Legislature bill that would create a mirror version of the California law — a sign that her team sees this fight as extending well beyond her own case.

Baldoni’s Team Isn’t Buying It

Baldoni’s lead attorney, Bryan Freedman, has been making the media rounds since Monday’s settlement announcement — including a series of YouTube appearances in which he’s called the deal a clear win for his client. His position: the real victory came on April 2, when Judge Liman dismissed Lively’s sexual harassment claims along with nine others.

“This case started with her seeking $300 million and seeking a sexual harassment claim against Justin Baldoni and Jamie Heath,” Freedman told Variety. “On April 2 that was gone… That’s when the victory happened. I’m not sure what we’re arguing about at this point.”

Baldoni’s team has also argued that the California law shouldn’t apply at all, since the alleged conduct occurred in New York and New Jersey — not California. Lively’s attorneys counter that her original administrative complaint was filed with the California Department of Civil Rights, which they say brings the statute into play. Freedman, for his part, was dismissive of what comes next. “This is just a ministerial function of whether someone is going to get fees or not,” he said. “My assumption would be that Judge Liman has much more important things on the docket than holding an evidentiary hearing.”

The Numbers — and a Shocking Quote From Wayfarer’s Financier

The scope of what’s still at stake is hard to overstate. Both sides assembled sprawling legal teams over the course of the litigation, with many of their attorneys billing well over $1,000 an hour. There were nearly 1,500 docket entries in Lively’s case alone. Legal expenses on both sides are believed to run into the tens of millions of dollars. Lively’s team says she expects to seek a “multimillion dollar reward” just to recover her fees.

Compounding the financial picture: a separate lawsuit filed by one of Wayfarer’s insurers, Harco National Insurance, is seeking a court order declaring it has no obligation to cover legal fees. Baldoni has countersued three other insurers for breach of contract for refusing to pay litigation costs. Their combined policies carried at least $8 million in coverage.

And then there’s the quote that Lively’s team included in Thursday’s court filing — one that’s likely to follow this case for a long time. Wayfarer cofounder and billionaire financier Steve Sarowitz is quoted as saying he was “prepared to spend $100 million to ruin the lives of Ms. Lively and her family.” The filing also cites Sarowitz saying: “I will protect the studio like Israel protected itself from Hamas. There were 39,000 dead bodies. There will be two dead bodies when I’m done. Minimum.”

Lively’s attorneys cite the statement as evidence that Baldoni’s lawsuit was retaliatory from the start — exactly the kind of conduct Section 47.1 was designed to punish.

Both sides are expected to file additional briefs. If Judge Liman finds it warranted, he could schedule an evidentiary hearing to assess damages — one at which Lively herself might testify. The settlement dismissed the larger lawsuits with prejudice, meaning they can’t be refiled. But the final chapter of one of Hollywood’s most closely watched legal dramas is still being written, and it’s in Liman’s hands now.