8th Circuit Affirms Denial of Attorney's Fees Award in Dropped Copyright Infringement Lawsuit
The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed Friday that a U.S. District Court in Sioux City, Iowa, was correct in deciding Leigh Leaverton, one of several people sued by Killer Joe copyright owner Killer Joe Nevada for downloading that…
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film via a BitTorrent computer program, wasn't entitled to attorney’s fees after Killer Joe Nevada moved to dismiss its suit against Leaverton. Killer Joe Nevada moved to dismiss with prejudice after Leaverton denied downloading Killer Joe. Leaverton had sought a declaratory judgment that she hadn’t infringed on Killer Joe Nevada’s copyright and attorney’s fees in the case, arguing that awarding attorney’s fees would deter Killer Joe Nevada and others from suing subscribers based on identification from an IP address without further investigation. U.S. District Court Judge Mark Bennett granted Killer Joe Nevada’s dismissal request in 2014 and denied both Leaverton’s counterclaim for declaratory judgment and her request for attorney’s fees, which Leaverton appealed on a claim that it was an abuse of the district court’s discretion. Although all parties agree Leaverton is the prevailing party in the case, attorney’s fees “are not awarded to the prevailing party automatically or as a matter of course,” said Appeals Judge Duane Benton in his opinion for the three-judge 8th Circuit panel. Judges James Loken and Bobby Shepard also affirmed the district court ruling. “Awarding attorney’s fees to a prevailing party ‘is a matter for the district court’s “equitable discretion,” to be exercised in an evenhanded manner by considering factors such as whether the lawsuit was frivolous or unreasonable, the losing litigant’s motivations, the need in a particular case to compensate or deter, and the purposes of the Copyright Act,’” the 8th Circuit said. The district court didn’t abuse its discretion by saying Killer Joe Nevada’s lawsuit and identification of Leaverton as a defendant were reasonable since Leaverton didn’t cite any binding authority that a copyright lawsuit “based on an infringer’s IP address is frivolous or unreasonable,” the 8th Circuit said. The district court also didn’t abuse its discretion by failing to explicitly consider Leaverton’s financial status in its ruling and by deciding Killer Joe Nevada lacked improper motivation for suing Leaverton, the 8th Circuit said.