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Defendant Says Righthaven Should Pay Legal Fees
Hugh Pickens writes "On June 20 District Court Judge Philip Pro found that Kentucky resident Wayne Hoehn was protected by fair use in posting a Las Vegas Review-Journal column on a sports website. Now Hoehn's attorneys have submitted a $34,000 bill and asked that Judge Pro require Righthaven to pay it. The $34,000 could be just the tip of the iceberg for Righthaven, should the Democratic Underground prevail in what likely will be a far larger fee demand."
SLAPP stands for Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation. Its meant to silence or intimidate critics, who may be completely accurate in what they are saying, just through legal costs. They don't even expect to go to trial, they expect to push a settlement through fear of legal costs.
Someone who wins a case against a company/individual using SLAPP tactics definitely deserves to have their legal fees paid by the 'SLAPPer'.
In Germany the plaintiff has to name the whole value for the case (it's called "Streitwert", amount in dispute), and all the lawyer's fees are set according to a fixed table in relation to that number. The percentage of the "amount in dispute" that gets finally awarded is taken as a measure for how successful the plaintiff was, and the lawyer's fees are then awareded according to that percentage. So if you are suing for 1 million and get 10 thousands in the end, you are considered 99% unsuccessful, and you have to pay 99% of the lawyer's fee for both sides.