Justin Baldoni received a one-week delay in pretrial court proceedings as his legal war with Blake Lively over ‘It Ends With Us’ nears its May court date
Justin Baldoni has received a one-week delay in the pretrial process of his It Ends With Us case against Blake Lively, after accusing her lawyers of flooding the court with a “document dump.” The trial is expected to begin on May 18, though Us Weekly obtained a new motion filed by Baldoni, 42, and the other Wayfarer Studios codefendants on Wednesday, March 25, asking for a one-week extension for any pretrial motions or orders.
Judge Lewis J. Liman ultimately granted Baldoni’s motion, thus moving the deadline for submitting pretrial filings from April 3 to April 10 and pushing a final pretrial conference from April 21 to April 28. In their request, Baldoni and Wayfarer Parties revealed that Lively’s legal team filed more than 1,000 potential exhibits on Friday, March 20. “It is difficult to imagine that even half that number would be put before a jury,” Baldoni’s team argued. “Many are lengthy exhibits, consisting of numerous text messages or pages, many of which are obviously irrelevant or inadmissible under multiple rules.” Baldoni also objected to Lively, 38, identifying more than 40 potential witnesses for trial, calling it an “overbreadth” of the legal system. The filmmaker’s lawyers confirmed that they are still working on a jury instruction document, which currently spans 85 pages and 13 causes of action. Team Baldoni additionally opposed finalizing a verdict sheet at this stage, arguing that it would be “premature” to speculate about findings or damages given that the case is still in the pretrial phase. Team Lively opposed Baldoni’s request for a delay in a letter to the court on Thursday, March 26. Her response accused Baldoni and Wayfarer Parties of using “an incremental tactic to delay the trial in this case.” “Defendants have repeatedly taken the position that trial preparations are premature based on their bold assumption that they will receive a case-changing order on the pending motions for judgment on the pleadings and summary judgment,” they argued. Since a previous request for “floating pretrial deadlines” was rejected, Lively argued that Baldoni “engaged in other delay tactics and self-help, including simply failing to comply with the parties’ initially agreed-upon pre-trial exchange deadlines.” “ have misrepresented the state of pre-trial exchanges, suggesting that Ms. Lively has engaged in bad faith and/or purposefully obfuscated anticipated trial exhibits, trial witnesses, or deposition testimony for presentation. This is false,” her lawyers alleged. “As acknowledge, Ms. Lively is the plaintiff in this case and bears the burden of proof on thirteen causes of action.” They added, “Ms. Lively is, and always has been, prepared to take her case to trial, and objects to any further attempts by Defendants to delay her ability to do so.” Following Judge Liman’s motion for an extension, both parties have been asked to attend a video conference on April 2 at 5 p.m. ETLively filed a hostile work environment complaint against Baldoni with the California Civil Rights Department in December 2024 over his alleged conduct on the It Ends With Us set, and later sued him in New York for alleged sexual harassment and orchestrating a smear campaign against her. Baldoni — who has continuously denied any wrongdoing — countersued Lively for $400 million but his claim was thrown out by Judge Liman last summer. Lively and Baldoni faced off in a settlement conference ordered by Judge Liam in February, but no resolution was reached. Baldoni’s lawyer Bryan Freedman told Deadline at the time that “there’s always a chance” of a settlement but insisted he was “looking forward” to the start of the trial. Earlier this month, Lively formally opposed Baldoni’s November 2025 request for the lawsuit to be dismissed. Her team cited a previous U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruling that a legal suit should not be dismissed due to the wording of a complaint, provided that evidence had already been gathered. “ would hardly serve the efficient or just resolution of disputes,” her lawyers argued in a March 12 letter to the court.
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