Judge Dismisses Justin Baldoni’s Lawsuit Against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds, The New York Times

Justin Baldoni’s lawsuit against Blake Lively, Ryan Reynolds and The New York Times was dismissed by a judge on Monday, according to court documents obtained by HuffPost.

The news marks the latest in the tumultuous back-and-forth legal battle that stems from the film “It Ends With Us,” which Baldoni directed and starred in. Lively, who is married to Reynolds, starred in the film as well.

Baldoni filed a $400 million countersuit against Lively, Reynolds and Lively’s publicist, Leslie Sloane, in January, claiming that they attempted to extort and defame him with sexual harassment claims and that the two actors tried to take control of his film. He also claimed in a defamation suit that the Times had falsely reported that he had created a smear campaign against Lively.

Baldoni’s countersuit also lists the film producer Jamey Heath, Wayfarer partner Steve Sarowitz and publicists Melissa Nathan and Jennifer Abel as plaintiffs.

However, Judge Lewis J. Liman of the U.S. District Court in Manhattan argued that Lively had relied on “legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions” rather than extortion. Liman also said that Lively’s statements accusing Baldoni of sexual harassment are privileged because they were made in a California Civil Rights Department complaint and therefore not considered defamation.

Additionally, Liman wrote that Baldoni’s claim that Reynolds, Sloane and the Times defamed him does not hold up because the suit does not prove that any of the parties “seriously doubted these statements were true based on the information available to them.”

In a 132-page opinion, the judge explicitly wrote that the Wayfarer Parties, which refer to Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and others in the company, “have not adequately alleged that Lively’s threats were wrongful extortion rather than legally permissible hard bargaining or renegotiation of working conditions. Additionally, the Wayfarer Parties have not shown that some of Lively’s allegedly extortionate acts damaged them.” (Baldoni is a co-founder of Wayfarer Studios, an independent production studio involved in the film.)

“The Wayfarer Parties have not alleged that Lively is responsible for any statements other than the statements in her CRD complaint, which are privileged,” the opinion also stated. “The Wayfarer Parties have alleged that Reynolds and Sloane made additional statements accusing Baldoni of sexual misconduct and that the Times made…