Blake Lively & Justin Baldoni & Wayfarer. Have They Actually Settled?? | Case Brief

Added: 2026-05-09

[00:00:00]Shall we talk about the case that will not end that is over? I think we should.

[00:00:07]What does a settlement look like?

[00:00:11]Well, let's look at this statement and talk about what that means and then well, I don't think we're going to hear much else about this case. The end product, the movie It Ends With Us, is a source of pride to all of us who worked to bring it to life. Raising awareness and making a meaningful impact in the lives of domestic violence survivors and all survivors is a goal that we stand behind. We acknowledge the process presented challenges and recognize concerns raised by Miss Lively deserved to be heard. We remain firmly committed to workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments. It is our sincere hope that this brings closure and allows all involved to move forward constructively and in peace including a respectful environment online. I imagine that this last sentence or the last part of this sentence including a respective environment online was a non-negotiable. I think that the blanket statement of workplaces free of improprieties and unproductive environments is about as close of an acknowledgement as you are going to get that the thing that they all agreed to in the document they signed was this movie needs to move forward in a productive way. Fine. And I think the concerns raised by Miss Lively deserve to be heard was something hard fought by her lawyers and was something that her lawyers probably weren't going to wiggle about. Is there an apology from either side? No, there's not. Is there an acknowledgement that they I think an acknowledgement that they signed the you know return to work rider and they're acknowledging that that was signed? Yes, cuz that was signed. And they also acknowledge that the process presented challenges and we recognize that the concerns deserve to be heard. Everyone deserves their day in court and yes, trial presents challenges to all sides and everyone's going to debate over whose side presented more challenges. But at the end of the day, I don't think we're going to hear much more about this because the NDAs are going to be well constructed.

[00:02:27]Everyone is going to have to sign them though because the biggest problem when this all got to well, one of the biggest problems when this all got to summary judgement was that the contract was never signed. So, if the NDAs have not been signed yet, and honestly, if I'm the Wayfairer lawyers, until those NDAs are signed, I'm not releasing [ __ ] Oh, you want there to be a joint statement?

[00:02:50]Sign it. Sign the NDA.

[00:02:53]Sign the NDA and then we'll release a joint statement. I'm not releasing anything until it's signed. Sign it.

[00:03:00]And we will know how much time they need to get things done when they file the notice that the case is settled. and then we will see a motion to dismiss with prejudice and that's it. We're not going to hear from the parties. We're not going to know the terms of the settlement. I imagine that the terms of the settlement are not going to leak.

[00:03:18]There is going to be rampant speculation about whether Wayfairer paid Lively, whether Lively paid Wayfairer, whether any money exchanged hands. Just understand that for a settlement there can be all kinds of non-monetary things including we will seal the rest of the case and take everything back offline. I mean the shit's out of the horse on that one but whatever.

[00:03:47]We will not work together in the future.

[00:03:50]We will not interfere with others work in the future. Could be. We will not sue over anything that happened with this movie. Yes, ownership of the sequel and affirming a walk away from the sequel could be a part of this. There are lots of things that can work into a settlement. The parties get to craft them. We saw a settlement ages ago of a anti-SLAP in a defamation where the party sued had won lawyers fees and instead of taking lawyers fees, they took the other party's 1 million subscriber YouTube play button plaque.

[00:04:35]They can negotiate any of this. You can have mutual walkaways where everybody just says, "We're not going to sue anymore over it.

[00:04:47]This is what we negotiate and we walk away." Money does not have to change hands for there to be a settlement.

[00:04:54]But ultimately, it's Lively that's going to have to file the motion to dismiss her lawsuit, and that has not been done yet. Thanks for joining me. If you enjoyed this episode and don't want to miss updates on your favorite cases, you're going to need the Lonard app at lonardapp.com. That way you can stay in the loop on the cases that matter most to you. And you never know when you're going to catch feelings for a new case.

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