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RIAA Directed To Pay $68K In Attorneys Fees
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "In Capitol v. Foster, in Oklahoma, the RIAA has been directed to pay the defendant $68,685.23 in attorneys fees. This is the first instance of which I am aware of the RIAA being ordered to pay the defendant attorneys fees. The judge in this case has criticized the RIAA's lawyers' motives as 'questionable,' and their legal theories as 'marginal' (PDF). Although the judge had previously ordered the RIAA to turn over its own attorneys billing records, today's decision (PDF) made no mention of the amount that the RIAA had spent on its own lawyers."
the lawyers, of course.
It's sad when it costs you $70,000 to defend yourself against an RIAA suit. At least in this case the RIAA had to pay for the defense's lawyers, but there have been plenty of others were the defendants were on their own when all was said and done. On top of that, the RIAA is well aware of the costs of defending against their lawsuit and uses this cost to force people into settlements.
The whole situation makes me sick.
This is exactly the reason why so many capitulate and take the RIAA $3000.00 settlement. maybe, just maybe people will begin fighting these RIAA thugs in suits because of this ruling.
Even if they did end up paying all her legal fees, plus interest, plus lost wages, the MAFIAA would still be ahead.
The point of these lawsuits isn't to recover "damages". It's to frighten the rest of the country into acting the way they want them to. If their skin were a little darker, it would be called "terrorism".
The court order referred to in the article states that "reasonable attorney's fees" should be set at somewhere between $175 and $225 per hour. That seems a bit low by comparison with what senior attorneys make around here. (Here being the East Coast.) If you think about it, even a higher hourly rate for a lawyer would be fairly well in line with what's commanded by other skilled and/or professional individuals--including computer consultants. It's interesting to stop and think what the doctor who takes out your appendix earns in an hour. The woman's actual bills as submitted summed up to a little over $114,000. That included a lot of other expenses besides attorney fees, including fees paid to expert witnesses. The RIAA seems to have put up quite a fight of their own, and they've succeeded in whittling down the sum to be awarded to the plaintiff.
The problem is that not everybody has $68,000 or $114,000 or even a few thousand dollars to put up that kind of fight. If it's beneficial to continue to carry the fight back to the RIAA in this manner, it's going to take a combination of well-heeled individuals and civic-minded lawyers.
After I read the article and the document, a chilling thought occurred: If the RIAA knows that certain people have the means to turn and fight, will they then concentrate their efforts on those people without the means? That would be students, children, the elderly, people just starting their careers, people working at lower-paying jobs.
"Here's what's happening. You're starting to drive like your Dad..." - Red Green
Now the decision and order has loaded, it seems that the defendant and her attorneys engaged in gamesmanship and got caught by the judge.
The defendant's attorneys charged for costs associated with answering e-mails, phone calls, and leaving voice mails. He also billed the same work twice by having two attorneys attend the same motion hearings. The Court got real pissy and took away some hours that it thought were due to the incompetence of the defendant's attorneys resulting in things having to be done twice.
Most tellingly, the Court was annoyed that half of the attorneys fees demanded were incurred after the defendant had been declared the victor and had already initially filed for attorneys fees. It seemed that the defendants/his attorneys belatedly realized that they were going to file for fees and had to rack up the hours. The Court found that there was an "increased, almost frenetic activity on the part of counsel for the defendant after it was determined that Defendant was the prevailing party" and was thereby eligible for attorneys fees.
And the defendant's attorney was trying to get away with $1.50 for each photocopied page. The Court granted them $.20. Kinko's charges $0.02.
So it sounds like I was right -- the defendant's attorney was running up the fee request by asking for things that no sane client would ever pay, and no sane attorney would ever ask from a real-life paying customer.
A NYC lawyer blogs. http://www.chuangblog.com/
From the filing:
[Plaintiffs] further argue that the defendant is not entitled to fees for work that could have been avoided had she assisted the plaintiffs or acceded to the settlement.
She can't charge for attorneys' fees because she decided not to settle? Does that imply that if she had settled, she would have gotten attorneys' fees? What planet are these people from?
Finally, [plaintiffs] contend the case was of too simple and mundane a nature to warrant a fee in excess of $100,000.
Yet they see nothing wrong with a fine of $100,000 per violation for copyright infringement.
How did the judge feel about this?
The plaintiffs argue that the defendant is not entitled to fees incurred after some point when she allegedly "could have avoided [fees] altogether but chose not to do so." Throughout the course of this litigation the plaintiffs have alleged that had the defendant appropriately assisted their copyright infringement investigation and litigation, she could have avoided being sued. The Court has rejected this argument on numerous occasions and declines to entertain it yet again. The defendant was entitled to litigate the claims the plaintiffs chose to bring against her and, as the prevailing party on those claims, she is entitled to recover the reasonable attorneys' fees she incurred in doing so.
Or, in layman's terms: Did your Mom drop you on your head when you were little?
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It should of course come from the lawyer, who does it at a personal loss. Much like when I set up computers and networking for non-profit charity, I don't charge anyone for those hours, but accept that I won't be paid for those hours, and thus make less. If I charged other clients more to cover getting paid for those hours too, I would be committing fraud.