Justia Legal Ethics Opinion Summaries

Plaintiff, a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, filed suit in 2006 against Missouri state and state officials after the Missouri General Assembly enacted statewide restrictions on pickets and protests near funerals and funeral processions. In 2014, Missouri appealed the statute at issue while plaintiff's Rule 59(e) motion remained pending in district court. In this appeal, plaintiff challenged the district court's adverse judgments on her due process claim as well as the court's award of attorneys' fees. The court vacated the district court's judgment on the due process claim and remanded with instructions to dismiss her claim as moot. In regard to the attorneys' fees, the court concluded that the district court's 2/14th calculation was an abuse of discretion because its arithmetically simplistic fee calculation did not accurately reflect her degree of success of her interrelated claims. Moreover, even if the court accepted the district court's basic mathematical approach, its 2/14th calculation is inaccurate because it did not address whether it counted consent judgments, mooted claims, and dismissed claims as prevailing, neutral, or unsuccessful claims. Accordingly, the court reversed the district court's award of attorneys' fees. View "Phelps-Roper v. Koster" on Justia Law

This appeal stemmed from a copyright dispute over the 2012 motion picture "Killer Joe." Plaintiff filed suit against defendant for copyright infringement and defendant counterclaimed for a declaratory judgment. The district court dismissed the suit, dismissed the counterclaim as moot, and denied defendant's requests for attorney’s fees and to make a record. Defendant appealed. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant attorney fees because plaintiff may properly sue "John Doe" to ascertain an ISP subscriber and because plaintiff promptly dismissed its lawsuit once it learned defendant was not the infringer and thus had proper motives to sue the subscriber. Further, defendant cites to no authority that a party’s financial status affects whether attorney’s fees under the Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. 505, should be awarded. Therefore, it was not an abuse of discretion for the district court to fail explicitly to consider the factor of financial status. The court rejected defendant's remaining claims and affirmed the judgment. View "Killer Joe Nevada v. Leaverton" on Justia Law