Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni’s shocking lawsuit latest update after one year
A year has passed since a lawsuit that Blake Lively filed against Justin Baldoni for a hostile work environment and smear campaigns.
The controversy occurred on the set of It Ends With Us, where the duo starred together. The actor, who also serves as the director of the movie, filed a counter-lawsuit against the actress for defamation and against her husband, Ryan Reynolds, for interfering in the film.
Now that both parties have not settled their dispute out of court, it seems likely the lawsuit will go to trial.
Benjamin White, a legal expert, weighs in on the case, telling People, “It might sound like a long time to be fighting this out, but going from filing a case to trial within a year and a half is actually pretty quick.”
He continues, “There has been a massive amount of intermediate fighting over things like discovery. There are over 1,000 entries on the docket for a case that’s only been around for a year. That’s an enormous amount of litigation.”
Latest Update about Blake and Justin’s case
A new trial date has been set for May 18, 2026, after it was delayed for 2 months. It’s expected the case in court will last a month, with jury selection said to begin in April.
Jury selection is expected to begin in April, with the trial itself lasting about a month.
Benjamin further explains the intricacies of the case, saying, “Reviewing the summary judgment papers felt like reading two entirely different books.”
“When the stories are that inconsistent, it’s very hard for a judge to choose one side over the other, which makes sending the case to trial the most likely outcome,” he notes.
“You can get a sense of the strength of the writing and some of the legal arguments. But it’s hard to judge how egregious the underlying evidence is when so much of it is redacted.”
“This doesn’t strike me as the type of case that can be resolved without a trial. In many ways, it reads as a classic he-said-she-said situation,” the expert adds.
“One side says certain things happened; the other says they didn’t, or that they did happen but are being misconstrued and taken out of context,” he says.
“Whether something happened and what it meant are exactly the kinds of questions a jury is meant to resolve,” Benjamin concludes.
