Justin Baldoni to Blake Lively
You Don’t Deserve $8 Million From Me!!!
Published
Justin Baldoni is firing back at Blake Lively‘s request that he pay a seven-figure sum to cover her legal bills in their “It Ends With Us” battle … TMZ has learned.
According to court docs obtained by TMZ, Baldoni and his Wayfarer team argue the amount Lively is seeking is wildly overinflated. They claim Blake has failed to present credible evidence showing she’s entitled to the fees and are asking the judge to deny her request outright.
The motion, filed by attorney Bryan Freedman, states … “Lively’s fee request is so over-inclusive that it sweeps in fees for researching her own liability for perjury arising from her California CRD claim and her Rule 11 motion for which the Court has already denied fees!”
In the alternative, Baldoni argues that if the judge awards fees at all, the amount should be slashed from more than $8 Million to a six-figure sum.
The filing argues Lively is trying to make Baldoni pay for legal work that goes far beyond defending his defamation lawsuit, calling her request bloated and unsupported.
A source close to Blake tells TMZ … Their argument on fees only being recoverable on the “defamation claim” is completely at odds with the statutory language. The statute says “successful defense of the litigation” not the “claim” and they don’t deal with that at all in their opposition, because they know they’re wrong.
The Blake source also tells us the cases were consolidated by the judge which they do not dispute.
As TMZ previously reported, Blake is seeking more than $8 Million after a judge dismissed Baldoni’s $400 Million defamation lawsuit and ruled she was entitled to recover attorneys’ fees tied to defeating that claim. The fee dispute comes after Blake and Justin settled the remainder of their years-long legal battle in May, avoiding trial on her remaining breach of contract and retaliation claims.