A Texas federal judge on Wednesday threw out a public relations consultant's defamation suit accusing Blake Lively of wrongly roping him into her sexual harassment claims against her "It Ends With Us" co-star Justin Baldoni, meaning that all of Baldoni's team's suits against her have been dismissed, at least for now.
U.S. District Judge David Alan Ezra dismissed the suit without prejudice, finding that the court doesn't have jurisdiction over the claims brought by Austin-based Jed Wallace and his company, Street Relations Inc.
"It is plaintiffs' burden to establish personal jurisdiction when faced with a motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction, and they have failed to present any 'affidavits, interrogatories, depositions, oral testimony or any combination of the recognized methods of discovery' that the court may use to determine the jurisdictional issue," Judge Ezra said.
Judge Ezra didn't otherwise examine the merits of the case.
A spokesperson for Lively said in a statement Wednesday that this decision means that all the "retaliatory lawsuits filed against Blake Lively by Justin Baldoni, Wayfarer Studios and their crisis communications and digital teams have been dismissed."
"Ms. Lively will have her day in court on her claims at the March trial in New York," the spokesperson said.
Chip Babcock of Jackson Walker LLP, counsel for Wallace and Street Relations, told Law360 on Wednesday that Wallace "is deeply disappointed in today's ruling, especially when Ms. Lively was the first to invoke the Texas court jurisdiction when she sued him first."
"He is investigating his appellate options," Babcock said.
Lively's dispute with Baldoni, who also directed "It Ends With Us," has spawned a number of suits. It all goes back to the California Civil Rights Department administrative complaint she filed in December 2024 claiming Baldoni sexually harassed her on the film set and then had publicists orchestrate a retaliatory smear campaign when she complained. The complaint named Wallace and Street Relations as defendants.
Baldoni in turn filed separate defamation lawsuits in January against Lively and The New York Times over its reporting on Lively's allegations, but those two lawsuits were dismissed in June.
Wallace and Street Relations responded with their defamation suit in February. They were seeking $1 million for reputation harm and lost business plus $6 million in punitive damages. Less than two weeks later, Lively bolstered her federal complaint with substantive new claims, including allegations against Wallace and his firm.
Lively pressed the court to throw out their suit in April, arguing that Wallace and Street Relations were trying to "drag her into a foreign court that lacks jurisdiction in an attempt to further punish her for privileged communications." And even if the Texas court finds it has jurisdiction, it should decline to adjudicate Wallace and Street Relations' claims because they "substantially" overlap with the litigation Lively ended up filing in New York federal court in December, Lively argued at the time.
Judge Ezra agreed Wednesday, rejecting the plaintiffs' argument that the court has jurisdiction because Lively's initial California administrative complaint — and subsequent draft complaints — mentions that Wallace is based in Texas. Those mentions were just to provide "background, biographical information," the judge said.
"Furthermore, plaintiffs do not allege that defendant relied on any Texas sources in writing the [administrative complaint] and draft complaints," Judge Ezra said.
The judge also shot down their argument that Lively's allegedly defamatory statements were "directed toward" Texas and that she knew that their effects would be felt there.
"While the [administrative] complaint was allegedly shared with The New York Times and was republished 'all over the world, including in Texas,' there is nothing to indicate that the article was targeting Texas readers as distinguished from readers in other states," Judge Ezra said.
Wallace and Street Relations had also pointed to Lively's purported response to a person's statement at the SXSW festival in Austin while promoting the movie as being defamatory. In that encounter, a Texas resident confronted her and said that "Blake lies" and referenced "justice for Justin," according to the opinion. Lively didn't respond by admitting that her statements were false, they had said.
But Judge Ezra on Wednesday agreed with Lively that silence alone doesn't constitute a defamatory statement.
"The court finds that these allegations are insufficient to support any claim, including to establish personal jurisdiction," the judge said.
He said he recognizes that Wallace and Street Relations haven't had an extensive opportunity in their case to conduct discovery, but "the issues underlying this case have been under extensive litigation in other courts for nearly a year and yet plaintiffs fail to provide the court with any greater level of detail beyond the speculation that … defendant repeated the defamatory remarks while in Texas."
Wallace and Street Relations are represented by Carl C. Butzer, Charles L. Babcock, J. Matthew Dow, Minoo Blaesche, Joel R. Glover and Cody L. Vaughn of Jackson Walker LLP.
Lively is represented by Laura L. Prather, Catherine L. Robb, Michael J. Lambert and Reid Pillifant of Haynes and Boone LLP.
The case is Jed Wallace et al. v. Blake Lively, case number 1:25-cv-00163, in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas.
Nov 12
Deal Summary
