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Defendant Says Righthaven Should Pay Legal Fees

Posted by Unknown on from the win-or-lose-we'll-make-you-pay dept.

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."

6 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. Bout time by Anonymous+Cowar · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

    1. Re:Bout time by DarkFencer · · Score: 4, Informative

      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'.

    2. Re:Bout time by Jason+Levine · · Score: 4, Interesting

      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).

      --
      My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
    3. Re:Bout time by AngryDeuce · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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.

    4. Re:Bout time by Rogerborg · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    5. Re:Bout time by Sique · · Score: 4, Informative

      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.

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      .sig: Sique *sigh*