A federal judge dealt a major blow to Blake Lively’s case against It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni. The judge tossed out ten of her thirteen claims roughly a month before the trial was scheduled to kick off. What remained were three claims that don’t list Baldoni, who is now forty-two years old, as a defendant.
Lively, who is now thirty-eight years old, will be moving forward with breach of contract, retaliation, and aiding and abetting retaliation.
Sigrid McCawley, part of Lively’s legal team, opened up to the Daily Mail after the decision came through. In her opinion, the result still represented something meaningful for the Gossip Girl actress.
“For Blake Lively, the greatest measure of justice is that the people and the playbook behind these coordinated digital attacks have been exposed and are already being held accountable by other women they’ve targeted,” McCawley shared.
“She looks forward to testifying at trial and continuing to shine a light on this vicious form of online retaliation so that it becomes easier to detect and fight.”
She also broke down why the sexual harassment claims specifically hadn’t held up in court, pointing to the judge’s ruling on Lively’s employment status.
“Sexual harassment isn’t going forward not because the defendants did nothing wrong but because the court determined Blake Lively was an independent contractor, not an employee,” McCawley’s statement concluded.
Blake Lively accused Baldoni of kissing her without script approval and entering her trailer while she was breastfeeding:
Blake Lively’s original complaint had detailed several allegations about Baldoni’s conduct during production. Lively, who is married to Hollywood superstar Ryan Reynolds, claimed that Baldoni kissed her in a scene where the script had no such direction.
The A Simple Favor actress added that Baldoni came into her trailer while she was nursing her baby, and that a producer had played her a video of his wife giving birth.
Baldoni’s attorneys, Alexandra Shapiro and Jonathan Bach, told the Daily Mail they were glad the court had gone the way it did.
“We’re very pleased the Court dismissed all sexual harassment claims and every claim brought against the individual defendants: Justin Baldoni, Jamey Heath, Steve Sarowitz, Melissa Nathan, and Jennifer Abel,” they stated.
“These were very serious allegations, and we are grateful to the Court for its careful review of the facts, law and voluminous evidence that was provided. What’s left is a significantly narrowed case, and we look forward to presenting our defense to the remaining claims in court,” they added.
As per a report shared by The Guardian, two emotional distress claims Lively had brought against Baldoni were dropped last June. Judge Liman had also thrown out Baldoni’s $400 million defamation case against Lively and her husband, Ryan Reynolds, that same month.
Judge rules Blake Lively’s key contracts were unenforceable as she never signed them:
As per a report shared by the Daily Mail on April 3, 2026, the dismissal of Lively’s sexual harassment claims came down to a contract she had never actually signed. The document was the Actor Loanout Agreement, or ALA, which would have set out the sexual harassment protections for her work on the film. She and Baldoni’s team had been wrangling over its terms for months without getting it done, and Judge Liman made clear in his 152-page ruling that this mattered enormously.
“It is clear that the ALA is not and has never been a validly formed and binding contract, as IEWUM (It Ends With Us Movie) unambiguously expressed an intent not to be bound absent a fully executed and signed agreement,” he wrote.
Blake Lively had pushed back on this, arguing that the two sides hadn’t been in disagreement over the sexual harassment provision itself, which she said gave her a basis to sue. The judge was unconvinced.
“That slices matters too finely. The question whether Lively would have the unilateral right to halt production of the film if in her view sexual harassment occurred is hardly inconsequential. The fact that the parties were not able to come to terms on such provision provides powerful evidence that no contract had yet been formed,” Judge Liman said.
The trial is still scheduled for May 18 in New York City, though Lively now goes in with considerably less to work with.
Edited by Priscillah Mueni