A federal judge has dismissed the majority of Blake Lively's civil claims against It Ends With Us director Justin Baldoni — but not all of them. The ruling, handed down this week in the Southern District of New York, cleared most of the lawsuit's counts but explicitly left three sexual harassment allegations standing. The case goes to trial next month. The case that half the internet declared dead is not dead.
The original complaint, filed in late 2024, alleged a coordinated harassment and smear campaign against Lively orchestrated by Baldoni's PR firm following her complaints about on-set conduct during the film's production. It was sprawling — defamation, breach of contract, sexual harassment, intentional infliction of emotional distress — and it was filed simultaneously with a New York Times investigation that published the alleged text messages between Baldoni's crisis team in detail.
What Got Dismissed
The judge found insufficient grounds to sustain most of the PR-related claims — essentially ruling that aggressive reputation management, even if coordinated and unflattering, doesn't automatically constitute tortious conduct. The defamation claims were largely dismissed on grounds that the statements at issue either didn't meet the legal standard for defamation or involved matters of opinion rather than verifiable fact. The breach of contract claims were dismissed for failure to establish damages with sufficient specificity at this stage.
That's a significant narrowing of the complaint. Lively's attorneys had constructed a maximalist case; much of the maximalism has been stripped away by standard pretrial attrition.
What Survived
The three surviving counts are the original core of the complaint: sexual harassment allegations stemming from Lively's account of Baldoni's conduct on set. These are the claims that sparked the dispute in the first place, before the PR campaigns and counter-campaigns and dueling social media narratives layered on top. The judge found these claims adequately pled and factually sufficient to proceed to trial.
Baldoni has consistently denied the allegations. His legal team characterized today's partial dismissal as a significant victory and indicated he would vigorously contest the remaining claims at trial. Lively's camp characterized the ruling as validation that the core of the case has merit and will be heard.
Why It Won't Let Go
The Lively-Baldoni dispute became a cultural Rorschach test almost immediately after it went public — read through the lens of whoever you already believed, producing the verdict you already held. That dynamic doesn't go away because a judge narrowed the complaint. The civil trial, with witnesses and discovery and testimony, is going to produce more information than either side wants public. It was always going to end in a courtroom or a settlement. It's ending in a courtroom. Trial date: next month.