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."

Comments

Bout time

[Anonymous Cowar]

I think that fee shifting should automatically be a part of any civil case. During the settlement, dismissal, or awarding process, the judge should be required to ask both sides if the bringer of the suit should pay legal fees, or a percentage of. As it stands, when you sue, most of the time you have nothing to lose and everything to gain if you get the right lawyer. Change that, break the cycle, and sanity might have a fighting chance.

Re:Bout time

[DarkFencer]

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'.

Re:Bout time

[Jason Levine]

Perhaps, then, legal fees should be capped at 2x the rate that the losing side is paying. This way if you're paying $5,000 for legal representation and they're paying $1,000,000 (just to pull numbers out of thin air), you'll be responsible for $15,000 ($5K for your lawyer and $10K for theirs).

Re:Bout time

[AngryDeuce]

If your case is good but you can't afford or attract a good lawyer, well, sucks to be you.

Yeah, that's awesome. Justice for those that can afford it, for everyone else, oh well, stop being so poor already.

It's reasons like that why companies like Walmart are able to commit labor violations in every state with impunity, because they know no lawyer is going to touch any case against them unless it's egregious (i.e., results in serious injury or death) and/or a slam dunk, and their million dollar lawyers are able to ensure that pretty much no case against them is ever gonna be a slam dunk.

Re:Bout time

[Rogerborg]

For every Harry Hardluck with a genuine grievance against Goliath Megacorp, there are dozens, hundreds, of Deborah Dickburgers signing their names on to pro-forma blackmail demands from the firm of Shark, Shyster and Slitpurse. The real solution is for courts and bar associations to sanction the most egregious hustlers, but making Debbie think twice before being party to their antics would be a good first step.

Re:Bout time

[Anonymous Coward]

If your case is good but you can't afford a good lawyer, you might be able to attact one to work for a percentage. If your case is good but you can't afford or attract a good lawyer, well, sucks to be you.

I'd like to tweak that slightly. If your case is good, but you can't attract a good lawyer, it probably wasn't that good.

Re:Bout time

[Sique]

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.

Re:Bout time

[NevarMore]

That would lead to lousy legal decisions. Except in cases of large corporation versus large corporation you'd wind up with legal cases being argued by Billy the Intern and Asok the Recent Graduate. Here in the US where case law is the real law, poorly represented cases can have devastating consequences to future suits.

Re:Bout time

[Myopic]

Yes, but another way to say that is "the real world sucks, and a lot of people and businesses are assholes. Despite this, we want the common recourse to be disassociating from the assholes, and not griping in courts of law. Only egregious or slam-dunk cases should be brought before judges. For everything else, just stop being that person's friend, neighbor, customer, or employee. Our society is litigious enough."

It's a sliding scale. The balance is hard to find because there are no bright lines.

Re:Bout time

[AngryDeuce]

For everything else, just stop being that person's friend, neighbor, customer, or employee.

But how does that solve the problem of our legal system being used by the big dogs as an impediment to justice instead of facilitating it? There needs to be fairness in the courts. Like anything else having to do with our government anymore, all too often cases are decided not by what is just but instead by who has the most money to throw at the problem. Consider what happens whenever Apple's Lawyer Brigade fires off a Cease and Desist letter; a lot of the time, that in itself is enough to scare someone into submission, because regardless if the person is technically right, the odds of them actually getting justice are slim to none. It goes against the entire spirit of equality in the eyes of the law.

Of course the simple answer will always be a glib "the world sucks, just find another job/friend/partner/whatever", but it does nothing to solve the problems that cause these situations in the first place. What incentive is there for a rich company or person to not break the law? Why should the individual respect a legal system that metes out justice according to the amount of capital the participants have?

Re:Bout time

[Uberbah]

Well, if you like cutting off your nose to spite your face, I suppose you could see it that way. Because your viewpoint relies on the "Jackpot Justice" myth, which is just that - a myth. Actual frivolous lawsuits are actually dismissed at trial. Don't be a chump for corporate immunization from accountability.

Re:Copyright law requires it

[cpt kangarooski]

Well, not quite entitled:

In any civil action under this title, the court in its discretion may allow the recovery of full costs by or against any party other than the United States or an officer thereof. Except as otherwise provided by this title, the court may also award a reasonable attorneyâ(TM)s fee to the prevailing party as part of the costs.

17 USC 505.

It's up to the discretion of the court, it's limited to a reasonable amount, rather than the actual amount, and under some circumstances (e.g. an ordinary infringement suit where the copyright wasn't registered in a timely fashion, and the plaintiff prevails) fees are not available at all.

Re:Would be nice but...

[scot4875]

Healthcare cost go up largely due to the lack of tort reform.

Popular Republican talking point, but factually incorrect. Tort reform would certainly save some money, but it's not even close to being a major source of waste.

Drugs are expensive in this country because the companies are building in the cost of a future lawsuit.

Also bullshit. Drugs are expensive in this country because of the obscene profit margins and the equally obscene amount spent on advertising. Reduce those to more normal levels and drugs could easily cost less than half of what they do now.

--Jeremy

Re:Would be nice but...

[AngryDeuce]

Drugs are expensive in this country because the companies are building in the cost of a future lawsuit.

Drugs are expensive in this country because there are no checks on drugs prices.

If the drugs were expensive because of a high cost of production, then they would be expensive regardless of the market they're being sold in, but that's not the case. The same drugs that cost $5.00 per pill here are sold for the equivalent of .50 cents in other countries, because the $5.00 price point would price it out of the market there. It's the same reason why a DVD of a particular movie costs $20 here in the states, but you go somewhere in Southeast Asia and you can buy a legit copy of the exact same film for $5....if the movie cost the equivalent of $20 there, nobody would ever buy it.