Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni called a truce in May. Their insurers, it seems, have not.
In fresh court papers, Baldoni's lawyers have repeated their case that QBE Insurance Corporation was obliged to fund his defence against Lively's claims. They are asking a Los Angeles Superior Court judge to decide the point without a full trial. Judge James I. Montgomery is due to hear the motion for summary adjudication on November 10.
Baldoni's argument is that QBE has only one real defence to coverage: that Lively was an employee, so the dispute falls within an employment-related carve-out. Baldoni's team says that defence has already been knocked down, and by Lively's own case.
In April, US District Judge Lewis Liman, who oversaw the New York litigation, threw out 10 of Lively's 13 claims in a 152-page opinion and order from the Southern District of New York. A central finding was that Lively had worked on the film as an independent contractor rather than an employee, which sank her federal harassment claims.
Baldoni's lawyers now say QBE is bound by that finding. Their papers describe Lively as an actor, executive producer and businesswoman with her own creative and commercial stake in the picture. They also argue that her grievances went well beyond anything connected with the shoot.
QBE sees it very differently. Its lawyers have argued that every strand of Lively's case, whether labelled harassment, retaliation, defamation or false light, grew directly out of her work as the film's leading lady. In their view, Wayfarer has stressed the retaliation and defamation claims to draw attention away from the workplace setting in which the dispute began.
Read next: Hollywood director sues QBE, Lloyd's over legal costs in Lively dispute
The underlying case began in December 2024. Lively sued in New York, alleging she had been harassed on set and then targeted by a retaliatory campaign to damage her reputation. Baldoni hit back in January 2025 with a $400m countersuit against Lively, her husband Ryan Reynolds and others, alleging defamation and extortion. Judge Liman dismissed it in June 2025 and entered final judgment that October, after Baldoni chose not to amend.
After the April ruling cut Lively's case down to three claims, the parties settled in early May, about two weeks before the trial was due to start. According to reports at the time, no money changed hands.
The insurance fight is a separate case. It began in July 2025, when Wayfarer, Baldoni and fellow executives sued New York Marine and General Insurance Company, QBE and certain underwriters at Lloyd's. They alleged breach of contract and bad faith, and said the policies together were worth at least $8m. The current motion is aimed at QBE.
Summarised from reporting on the July 2025 complaint. The policy wordings themselves have not been made public.
There is another front as well. Harco National Insurance Company went to federal court in New York seeking a declaration that it owes nothing under Wayfarer's management liability programme. It argues that Wayfarer knew about Lively's complaints before its cover began and failed to disclose them. Baldoni's attempt to have that case thrown out has since failed.
Read next: Deadpool's wife, a billionaire and an insurer all in one big Hollywood story
Take away the celebrity names and this is a textbook coverage dispute about a definition. Employment carve-outs exist to push workplace claims onto EPL, where they are meant to be priced and handled. If the court decides the claimant was never an employee, a claim the insurer treated as an employment matter could end up inside a liability or media wording that was never intended to cover it.
For the insured, the irony is plain, the finding that helped defeat Lively's harassment claim is now its best argument for getting QBE to pay.
The New York ruling is not as tidy as either side might like, though. Judge Liman's employee finding was made in the context of federal harassment law, and one of the claims that survived to the eve of trial was retaliation under California's employment statute. QBE could argue that a ruling on one statute does not settle what a word means in an insurance policy. Much will depend on the exact wording of the exclusion, which has not been made public.
Read next: Tribunal surge puts SME management liability on notice
The US ruling does not bind UK courts, and UK law uses its own tests for employee and worker status. Even so, the underlying question is a live one in the UK. Worker status is regularly fought over in the tribunals, and the Employment Rights Act 2025 will extend the time limit for most tribunal claims from three to six months. Brokers placing cover for production companies, agencies or any business relying on high-value freelancers may want to check how "employee" is defined in each layer of a client's programme, and whether the exclusions use broad "arising out of" language.
Read next: NHS tribunal ruling exposes growing UK employment risk
The media angle is not only a US story. QBE Europe has been building a media professional indemnity book in London, hiring underwriters ahead of a new product launch earlier this year. The Wayfarer case shows how general liability, media liability and management liability can overlap on a single production, or fail to meet in the middle. The Harco dispute adds a familiar lesson about notifying circumstances: a complaint raised on set and not reported at renewal can come back as a declined claim years later.
Read next: QBE's adjusted profit rises to $1.03 billion in half-year result
None of this will be settled before November. If Judge Montgomery sides with Baldoni, QBE could face years of defence costs. If he sides with QBE, the fight over the bills will go on for some time yet.
