Lawyers for both Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have been unexpectedly called to discuss their latest openness to settling their case, just one day after a judge tossed Lively’s accusations of sexual harassment on the set of the movie it Ends With Us.
The attorneys in the long-running case have been told to call US Magistrate Judge Sarah Cave on Monday in separate sessions.
It comes a day after Lively’s case was stripped to its bones.
The public will not be allowed to hear what is said on the two calls on Monday.
The first is with Lively’s lawyers at 3pm and those for Baldoni and his company Wayfarer Productions are to be held one hour later.
Both sides have been told they should address ‘their client’s updated settlement position’.
Lively’s lawyer Michael Gottlieb insisted that doesn’t mean it is all over. He said the actress is looking forward to the trial scheduled for next month.
In a statement to the Daily Mail, Gottlieb said the jury will still hear her claims about sexual harassment, which he called ’the beating heart’ of the case.
Lawyers for both Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni have been summoned to discuss the pair’s renewed openness to settling their messy legal feud
The It Ends With us co-stars have been locked in legal drama since December 2024 – but Judge Lewis Liman’s decision today means the actress has only three claims left to argue
‘The court’s ruling that Ms. Lively’s state and federal harassment claims could not go to trial was about legal issues rather than an endorsement of the defendants’ conduct,’ said Gottlieb.
‘The court held that Ms. Lively’s sexual harassment claims could not go to a jury because Ms. Lively did not sign a contract, that she is an independent contractor instead of an employee, and that the offensive conduct occurred in New Jersey instead of California.’
Originally, the 39-year-old actress sued Baldoni and some of shareholders in their joint film, It Ends With Us, claiming she was subjected to sexual harassment and a toxic work environment.
On Thursday, Judge Liman tossed all of the most damning claims, stripping her case down to just three counts; breach of contract, retaliation and aiding and abetting retaliation.
They had been due to go to trial in New York on May 18.
The messy feud boils down to Baldoni’s alleged harassment of Lively on set, and what she claimed was a smear campaign orchestrated by him and his team in the aftermath of the disastrous production.
In an explosive lawsuit filed in California in December 2024, Lively alleged that they’d fat-shamed her and forced her into uncomfortable scenes.
The lawsuit was quickly reported on by The New York Times, which accused Baldoni and his colleagues of orchestrating a smear campaign against Lively.
Baldoni immediately denied the allegations. He then sued The New York Times, Lively and her husband Ryan Reynolds.
Both cases were thrown out and Lively’s outstanding complaints were consolidated into one case, to be argued in New York in May.
In his ruling, Judge Liman (pictured) knocked down another of Lively’s arguments and said she ‘gets things backwards’
Baldoni’s team celebrated the judge’s ruling yesterday that most of Lively’s claims be tossed.
‘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.
‘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,’ Baldoni’s attorneys, Alexandra Shapiro and Jonathan Bach, told Daily Mail.
Among Lively’s allegations was that Baldoni crossed professional boundaries during filming of It Ends With Us, claiming he kissed her during a scene where the script didn’t call for it. She also accused him of entering her trailer while she was breastfeeding and alleged that a producer showed her a video of his wife giving birth.
Sigrid McCawley, a member of Lively’s legal team, told the Daily Mail, ‘This case has always been and will remain focused on the devasting retaliation and the extraordinary steps the defendants took to destroy Blake Lively’s reputation because she stood up for safety on the set and that is the case that is going to trial.
‘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. 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.
A somber looking Lively, 39, is seen arriving at court in New York on February 11, 2026
‘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.’
In his ruling, Judge Lewis Liman said that legal contracts that Lively cited for her claim were ‘unenforceable’ because she didn’t sign them.
In particular, Lively did not sign the Actor Loanout Agreement, or ALA, which would have governed sexual harassment on set, after squabbling with Baldoni’s team for months about the terms.
In his 152-page ruling, the judge wrote: ‘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’.
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