Righthaven Lacked Standing and Ordered to Pay Opponent’s Fees in Copyright Suit.
As reported by Steven Green in a September 27, 2011 post at vegasinc.com, Righthaven LLC of Las Vegas lacked standing to file copyright infringement lawsuits in Colorado in a dispute concerning the Denver Post’s publication of a Transportation Security Administration Agent performing an enhanced pat-down search at the Denver International Airport. Righthaven lacked standing because it only had a bare right to sue not actual ownership under a transfer from the Denver Post’s parent company. Also, under Copyright Act section 505, Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane of the District of Colorado ordered that Righthaven reimburse the defendant for full defense costs, including attorney’s fees. Defendant’s attorneys want Righthaven to post a $25,000 bond to ensure payment.
Sigtarp Audit Report Criticizes Fee Billings of Four Law Firms.
A September 29, 2011 post on the Blog of Times informs us that a new audit report by the special inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program (“sigtarp”) says that four law firms failed to justify $8.1 million in legal fees they charged the U.S. Treasury Department for work related to the financial crisis. Mainly, the report criticized the lack of adequate detail or substantiation for the sought-after fees. However, the report did blame Treasury for not giving enough directions about the level of fee detail and for giving conflicting directives at different points of time.
District Judge Rebuffs Insurers’ Intervention Request in MGA-Mattel Litigation.
Amanda Bronstad, in her September 28, 2011 article in The National Law Journal, reports that U.S. District Judge David O. Carter (C.D. Cal.) denied insurers’ request to intervene in the MGA-Mattel suit to snag part of the $141 million in fees/costs awarded to MGA. Judge Carter reasoned that the intervention request was untimely and should have been made before MGA applied for fees and costs. Insurers have claimed that they have already paid $80 million for MGA’s defense in the Mattel dispute.