However, She Had Sought Over $8 Million In Fees And Costs, With District Judge Only Awarding For Fees/Costs For Defamation Counter-Claim Work And Making Other Reductions.
This post gives us a chance to discuss Civil Code section 47.1(b), which has a prevailing defendant fee/costs-shifting provision. Section 47.1 protects a defendant’s communications about sexual harassment by deeming them privileged in nature under section 47.
Blake Lively and her former co-star Jason Baldoni (in “It Ends With Us”) and his production company got into a legal donnybrook in New York federal court over sexual harassment and other claims by Ms. Lively and tort counter-claims by Mr. Baldoni and the production company, including a defamation counter-claim. The district judge presiding over the case dismissed the counter-claims, triggering section 47.1(b) for at least the defamation count. (Eventually, a settlement was reached later on.) Ms. Lively moved for over $8 million in fees and costs, drawing a vigorous opposition by the counter-claimants.
The opposition challenged the hourly rates and work effort by Ms. Lively’s attorneys as unreasonable (involving an hourly rate of up to $2,187 for some attorneys and covering over 7,000 hours of work by 82 different timekeepers, according to opposing counter-claimants).
In an August 26, 2026 order, U.S. District Judge Lewis Liman granted Ms. Lively $383,245 in fees and $44,206 in costs under section 47.1, determining that she could not obtain all costs expended in the litigation—only those costs associated with defending against the dismissed defamation count. He found the hourly rates were “not unreasonable,” but the district judge did reduce some of the compensable work effort for unreasonableness. District Judge Liman also excluded time for client media relations and publicity activities.