Blake Lively awarded legal fees and costs in Justin Baldoni case

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Set us as preferred In what could prove to be the final court ruling in the long-running legal battle between Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni over “It Ends With Us,” a federal judge on Wednesday awarded Lively about $407,000 in attorneys’ fees and court costs stemming from a defamation claim in Baldoni’s dismissed lawsuit against her.U.S.District Judge Lewis Liman awarded Lively $363,000 in attorneys’ fees and another $44,000 in court costs for defending against Baldoni’s defamation claim.

Lively had sought $7.5 million in attorneys’ fees and another $540,000 in costs.The ruling follows Liman’s decision in June that Lively was entitled to recover reasonable attorneys’ fees under California Civil Code Section 47.1, a law designed to protect people who report sexual misconduct from retaliatory defamation claims.At the time, the amount Baldoni and his production company, Wayfarer Studios, would have to pay remained undetermined.In Wednesday’s ruling, Liman found that while the billing rates charged by Lively’s attorneys were “not unreasonable” given the high stakes and complexity of the case, she was entitled to reimbursement only for work tied to defending against the defamation claim.

He also found the number of hours for which she sought reimbursement was unreasonable.The combined award amounts to about 5% of the more than $8 million in fees and costs Lively had requested.Despite the reduced award, Lively’s attorneys, Esra Hudson and Michael Gottlieb, called the decision “historic,” pointing to what they described as the first-ever award of fees and costs under the California law.“As we have said from day one, Blake Lively’s case was never about money — it was about accountability,” they said in a statement.“This result demonstrates that the legal system is not as easily manipulated ...