The legal battle between actors Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni has returned to centre stage in a New York court despite a deal to end Lively's claims that she suffered retaliation after making sexual harassment claims over the making of their 2024 film It Ends With Us.
Lawyer Ellyn Garofalo, representing Baldoni, told US District Judge Lewis J. Liman that Lively was trying through an application for legal fees to do "an end run around the jury trial" that was voided when a deal was reached before a May trial was set to start.
At a hearing without the actors, Garofalo told Liman it was wrong for Lively to seek damages and legal fees after agreeing to a settlement in which she dismissed her claims without Baldoni and his production company "paying a cent of the $US300 million in damages she was demanding."
"Reopening this for basically what is an alternative trial would involve reopening discovery, new experts, new expert depositions," she said. Garofalo called it "effectively an end run around the jury trial."
A California law permits "significant" penalties to be levied against any party who filed unsuccessful retaliatory defamation actions against sexual harassment and retaliation litigants.
Baldoni's countersuit alleging defamation and extortion was tossed out last year by the judge.
Liman did not immediately rule after hearing more than an hour of arguments.
Lawyer Michael Gottlieb, representing Lively, asserts the lawsuit Baldoni brought was the very kind of litigation the California law was designed to stop, enabling survivors of sexual harassment to be protected from a protracted and damaging legal fight.
In early May, Lively and Baldoni agreed to settle a lawsuit that had left both sides publicly making claims against one another since the litigation began in December 2024 when Lively, 38, sued Baldoni, 42, and his production company, Wayfarer Studios.
Weeks after Lively filed suit, Baldoni sued Lively, accusing her, her husband Ryan Reynolds and their publicist of defamation and extortion.
Baldoni, who directed the dark romantic drama and starred in it with Lively, denied harassing her or orchestrating a smear campaign. He claimed the complaints about his behaviour were made up by Lively as part of an effort to seize creative control of the movie.
The settlement was reached days after Liman dismissed Lively's sexual harassment claims, ruling that she couldn't pursue them under federal law because she was an independent contractor rather than an employee on the movie set.
Lively had claimed during filming, Baldoni made inappropriate comments about her appearance, violated physical boundaries while filming a love scene, and pushed for nudity - against Lively's wishes - during a scene in which her character was giving birth.
Baldoni denied doing anything outside of what occurs during the normal creative process to make a movie.
In their joint statement after the deal was reached, the parties said they recognise Lively's concerns "deserved to be heard" and they "remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments."
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