Blake Lively’s Sexual Harassment Claims Against Justin Baldoni Thrown Out by Judge as Retaliation Claims Head to Trial

A trial involving the "It Ends with Us" director and star is scheduled for May.

Blake Lively‘s claims of sexual harassment against “It Ends with Us” director Justin Baldoni have been thrown out by a federal judge, but the judge allowed her accusations of retaliation on the part of Baldoni to move forward to a jury trial.

In a ruling on Thursday, April 2 in Federal District Court in Manhattan, Judge Lewis J. Liman ruled that in response to sexual harassment claims Lively made on the set of “It Ends with Us” that a reasonable jury could view this as retaliation. Liman wrote that, while some things would be acceptable for a crisis PR campaign to do, other aspects may have “crossed the line.” But by focusing Lively’s case only on the retaliation, it limits what Lively’s legal team can have be considered by a jury in a trial.

“There are limits to the response that the accused can make in response to claims of harassment,” Liman wrote in the 152-page opinion. “There comes a point where the accused stops simply defending him or herself and starts taking action that a reasonable jury could view as retaliation for the fact that the accuser had the temerity to make the accusations.”

The ruling continues: “Here, certain conduct could be construed as directed not at Lively’s allegations and at undermining their credibility, but as an attack on her professional reputation and livelihood…There is evidence from which a jury could find that the Wayfarer Parties planned more aggressive action, not only to ‘destroy’ Lively’s accusations but to destroy her and her career.”

The judge argued that Lively’s sexual harassment claims did not meet legal standard. Among her accusations, she made reference to texts between Baldoni and his Wayfarer partner that she believed sexualized her, as well as comments in front of crew that she had never watched pornography. Baldoni’s legal team has denied the claims.

Lively filed suit in December 2024, claiming that, after she had complained about a sexual harassment incident in which she claimed Baldoni’s partner Jamey Heath had stared at her bare breasts in a trailer, Baldoni hired a crisis PR firm designed to smear her reputation on social media. He has argued that it was to protect his own reputation, not to smear Lively. He filed a counter defamation suit against Lively regarding the actress speaking to the New York Times about her legal complaint, but a judge last June tossed that suit.

The trial, which is meant to kick off in May unless a settlement is reached, will focus on whether the social media narrative that stirred around Lively and “It Ends with Us” was organic or if it was orchestrated by the crisis PR team.