This revised report reorganises the main details around Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni Legal Battle: What Was Dismissed, What Settled and What Happened Next for clearer reading while preserving the original article’s factual content.
Blake Lively’s long-running legal dispute with her It Ends With Us co-star and director Justin Baldoni changed dramatically during 2026.
In early April, a federal judge dismissed most of Lively’s claims, including her sexual-harassment claims, while allowing a narrower group of retaliation-related claims to proceed.
Lively responded by saying she intended to continue the case.
That promise did not ultimately lead to the scheduled May trial because the parties reached a settlement on 4 May 2026.
Later, a separate dispute over legal fees produced an award of roughly $407,000 in Lively’s favour.
How did the dispute begin?
The public conflict followed the 2024 release of It Ends With Us, a film based on Colleen Hoover’s bestselling novel.
Lively starred in the film, while Baldoni co-starred and directed it through his company Wayfarer Studios.
Why did the film’s press tour attract attention?
Observers noticed that Baldoni was often separate from Lively and other cast members during promotion.
Speculation about behind-the-scenes tension grew before formal legal claims became public.
Lively’s lawsuit
In December 2024, Lively sued Baldoni, Wayfarer and others.
She alleged misconduct on set and retaliation after she raised concerns.
Baldoni’s response
Baldoni denied wrongdoing and later filed his own claims, including a large defamation lawsuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and others.
Why the litigation became unusually public
Both sides released statements, court documents and competing narratives that were widely discussed online.
June 2025 setback for Baldoni
Judge Lewis J Liman dismissed Baldoni’s defamation and related claims in 2025.
Why that mattered later
The dismissal became the basis for Lively’s later application to recover legal fees under a California law designed to protect people who make harassment complaints from certain retaliatory defamation actions.
April 2026 ruling against much of Lively’s case
On 2 April, Judge Liman dismissed 10 of Lively’s 13 claims.
Sexual-harassment claims
The judge dismissed the harassment claims that had formed a major part of the public dispute.
Why were some claims dismissed?
The court’s reasoning involved the legal framework that applied to Lively’s working relationship and whether particular alleged conduct met the required statutory tests.
Why dismissal is not the same as finding every allegation false
A civil claim can fail because a particular statute does not apply, because legal elements are not satisfied or because the evidence is insufficient for that claim.
A dismissal should therefore be described according to the court’s reasoning rather than converted into a broader moral verdict.
What claims remained?
Three claims were allowed to continue, including retaliation-related allegations against Wayfarer and public-relations defendants.
Lively’s April response
Her lawyers said the case would continue and emphasised the surviving retaliation claims.
Why the original headline said she would “carry on”
At that moment, a trial was still scheduled and Lively had not settled.
Trial date
The trial had been set for 18 May 2026 in New York.
Why settlement talks were already significant
The parties had participated in settlement discussions before the April ruling.
What happened on 4 May?
Lively, Baldoni and the relevant defendants announced a settlement that ended Lively’s remaining case before trial.
Were the settlement terms public?
No.
The financial and other details were not disclosed publicly.
Did Lively receive money in the settlement?
Reuters later reported that she received no compensation from the settlement itself.
Why that distinction matters
The later legal-fee award was separate from settlement compensation.
Joint statement
The parties said they hoped the agreement would bring closure and allow those involved to move forward.
Did the settlement amount to an admission?
No public admission of liability was announced as part of the settlement.
Why settlements are often used
Civil cases can be expensive, unpredictable and personally intrusive.
A settlement allows both sides to avoid trial risk and end discovery or testimony obligations.
What happened after settlement?
A narrower legal issue remained over whether Lively could recover fees and costs connected with Baldoni’s dismissed lawsuit.
June 2026 ruling
Judge Liman ruled that Lively could recover reasonable legal fees under the California law but denied additional damages she had sought.
Why the ruling mattered
It treated Baldoni’s defamation action as falling within legal protections intended to prevent retaliatory claims against people who report alleged sexual harassment.
How much did Lively request?
She sought more than $8 million in attorneys’ fees and costs.
How much did the judge award?
On 26 August, the court awarded about $407,000 in total.
Breakdown
The award included roughly $363,000 in attorneys’ fees and about $44,000 in costs.
Why was the amount so much lower?
Judge Liman found that the reimbursement request covered too many hours or lacked enough explanation in some areas.
Did the judge say the lawyers’ hourly rates were improper?
Reuters reported that the court did not reject the rates simply because some exceeded $2,000 an hour; the larger problem was the number and scope of billed hours for which reimbursement was requested.
Why court-ordered fees are not the same as damages
Legal fees reimburse litigation costs.
Damages compensate for proven injury or loss.
Was Lively awarded damages?
Not through the August ruling.
What happened to Baldoni’s countersuit?
It remained dismissed.
Did either side appeal the August fee ruling?
Reuters reported that the parties agreed not to appeal that decision.
Why the settlement changed the meaning of the April story
An April article naturally focused on Lively’s promise to continue.
By September, the accurate retrospective is that the case continued only briefly before settlement eliminated the planned trial.
Why allegations still need careful wording
Lively alleged harassment and retaliation.
Baldoni denied the allegations.
Most claims were dismissed, remaining claims settled and there was no trial verdict establishing liability on the settled allegations.
Why the court record matters more than social media
The dispute generated enormous online commentary, but legal outcomes are determined by filed claims, judicial orders and settlement agreements.
Online campaigns
Both sides accused the other of manipulating public opinion.
Why that is hard to verify from viral posts
Coordinated publicity activity can involve agencies, paid strategy and organic fan behaviour simultaneously.
What is firmly established as of September 2026?
Most of Lively’s claims were dismissed in April, the remaining civil case settled in May, and she later received about $407,000 in fees and costs connected with Baldoni’s dismissed defamation suit.
What did not happen?
The scheduled trial did not take place.
Why this matters for SEO updates
A headline saying Lively “vows to carry on” leaves readers at a temporary April stage.
The current version should lead with the final settlement and later fee ruling.
Conclusion
Lively’s legal battle did continue after the major April setback, but not all the way to trial.
She kept several retaliation-related claims alive, then reached a settlement with Baldoni and Wayfarer on 4 May.
The settlement terms were not disclosed and Reuters later reported she received no settlement compensation.
A separate fees dispute ended in August with an award of approximately $407,000 in her favour.
That sequence — dismissal, decision to continue, settlement and fee award — is the most accurate way to describe the case now.
Sources and further reading
See ABC’s report on the April ruling, Reuters on the May settlement and Reuters on the August fee award.
Why the April ruling did not end every dispute between the parties
Civil litigation can contain several separate claims based on different statutes and theories. A judge may dismiss some while allowing others to continue, which is what happened in April. That is why headlines saying Lively had simply “lost her case” were incomplete.
Why the settlement mattered more than the planned trial
The May agreement removed the possibility of a jury or judge deciding the remaining claims at trial. Without a trial verdict, later commentary cannot accurately say the surviving claims were proven or disproven.
Why settlement terms are often confidential
Parties may want privacy around financial arrangements, reputational concerns or obligations. Confidential terms also reduce the risk that negotiations become another source of public conflict.
What happened to the harassment allegations after dismissal?
They remained allegations that Baldoni denied, but the specific civil causes of action based on those allegations no longer moved toward trial after the judge’s ruling.
Why the distinction between factual allegations and legal claims matters
A complaint may describe conduct in detail, while the legal claim asks whether that conduct satisfies a particular statute. A court can decide the legal claim fails without resolving every disputed factual allegation in the way a jury verdict might.
Baldoni’s counterclaims
His large countersuit had already been dismissed before the 2026 settlement. That dismissal shaped the later fees dispute because Lively argued she had incurred costs defending against claims that California law was designed to discourage in this context.
Why the fee award was still a partial win rather than complete reimbursement
Lively received only a small fraction of what she requested. The court accepted that some fees were recoverable while rejecting the scale of the overall request.
Why media-relations costs were scrutinised
High-profile litigation can generate major public-relations bills, but not every communications expense is necessarily recoverable as a litigation cost from the other side.
What the August ruling suggests about high-profile legal bills
Even sophisticated legal teams working on complex celebrity cases must document why particular hours were reasonably necessary if they want another party to reimburse them.
Why the case became a warning about online legal narratives
Supporters of both actors often treated interim filings as final proof. In reality, the legal position changed repeatedly through dismissals, settlement and fee rulings.
Why future articles should use the final procedural posture
The case no longer needs to be framed around an upcoming trial. The key status in September is that the underlying dispute settled and the remaining post-settlement fee issue produced a court award.