<\/p>\n
Justin Baldoni\u2019s defamation claim against co-star Blake Lively and his libel lawsuit against The New York Times have officially been thrown out.<\/p>\n
According to legal documents obtained by TMZ on Friday, the \u201cIt Ends With Us\u201d director and star missed the deadline to appeal<\/a> Judge Lewis Liman\u2019s earlier dismissal of the multimillion-dollar suits.<\/p>\n The New York judge in June tossed Baldoni\u2019s $400 million suit against Lively, husband Ryan Reynolds and publicist Leslie Sloane, as well as his $250 million filing against The Times for its December expos\u00e9 titled, \u201c\u2018We Can Bury Anyone:\u2019 Inside a Hollywood Smear Machine.\u201d<\/p>\n Lively at the time accused Baldoni of having sexually harassed her<\/a> on the set of their film and of waging a retaliatory PR campaign. Baldoni responded by filing a countersuit alleging defamation, in addition to his suit against The Times for its coverage of Lively\u2019s claims.<\/p>\n Baldoni\u2019s filing against The Times asserted the deep-dive was \u201crife with inaccuracies (and) misrepresentations,\u201d which drew significantly from Lively\u2019s \u201cself-serving narrative.\u201d He accused the paper of relying on \u201c\u2018cherry-picked\u2019 and altered communications<\/a> stripped of necessary context and deliberately spliced to mislead.\u201d<\/p>\n However, Liman found that Lively was not liable for her claims because the allegations originated in a civil rights complaint. The New York Times \u2014 having based its story on the \u201cavailable evidence\u201d and Lively\u2019s initial complaint \u2014 was also not liable, Liman ruled, saying it had \u201cno obvious motive to favor Lively\u2019s version of events.\u201d<\/p>\n Reynolds was similarly found not liable for having dubbed Baldoni a \u201csexual predator,\u201d as that statement was consistent with his wife\u2019s account of what happened, which he\u2019d have no reason to call into question.<\/p>\n