Erickson Productions Inc v. Kraig R Kast

Background

Erickson Productions, Inc. and Jim Erickson sued Kraig Kast in 2013 for copyright infringement involving three photographs. In 2015, a jury found that Kast was vicariously and contributorily liable for willful infringement and awarded the maximum statutory damages stated in the opinion: $150,000 per photograph, or $450,000 total. Judge Howard R. Lloyd entered judgment for that amount.

Kast appealed. The Ninth Circuit affirmed the judgment in part and reversed it in part, and the case returned to the district court. After remand, the parties briefed willfulness and the amount of statutory damages. On February 12, 2021, the court ruled that the evidence supported willful infringement and awarded Erickson $450,000 in statutory damages. Judgment was entered the same day.

Kast later moved for a new trial or to amend the judgment, and he appealed the February 12, 2021 order and judgment. The court denied those Rule 59 motions on August 30, 2021. The next day, the court granted in part and denied in part Erickson’s request for attorneys’ fees and costs under the Copyright Act, leaving the amount for later determination.

First Motion to Stay

Kast’s first motion sought to stop enforcement of the judgment, including a writ of execution and judgment-debtor discovery. Because the Clerk had already issued a writ of execution, the court treated Kast’s request as a motion to stay that writ.

The court held that the subsection of Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 62 that Kast cited no longer existed. Under the current Rule 62(b), a party may obtain a stay after judgment by providing a bond or other security, and the stay begins when the court approves that bond or security. Kast had not posted a bond and had not objectively shown a reason to depart from the usual requirement. His request that Erickson post a bond was unsupported, and the court denied his motion to stay the writ of execution.

The court also rejected Kast’s argument that earlier stay orders prevented enforcement in this case. The stay entered by Judge Lucy H. Koh had ended when the cited appeals were resolved. The orders by Chief Judge Richard Seeborg and Judge Susan Greenberg stayed other cases, not this case. The court therefore found that no stay was in place here.

As to post-judgment discovery, the court explained that Rule 62 did not provide the relief Kast sought. The court also considered Kast’s alternative request for a protective order under Rule 26(c), which allows protection from annoyance, embarrassment, oppression, undue burden, or expense for good cause. Kast did not provide specific evidence of prejudice or harm and instead made broad, unsupported assertions. The court denied the request to stay the discovery and/or bar it through a protective order.

Second Motion to Stay

Kast’s second motion sought to stay the writ of execution and post-judgment discovery while his appeal was pending, without requiring a bond. He also asked the court to stay any attorneys’ fee award.

The court considered Kast’s request to waive the bond requirement under factors identified in Dillon v. City of Chicago. Those factors include the complexity of collection, the time needed to collect after an appeal, the likelihood that funds would be available, whether the cost of a bond would be unnecessary because payment was certain, and whether the defendant’s financial situation made a bond unfair to other creditors.

Kast argued that the case was complex, that his appeal could take two to five years, that he had only Social Security income, and that his financial circumstances prevented him from obtaining a bond. The court found that these assertions did not support waiving the bond requirement. In particular, Kast’s claimed financial insecurity and inability to earn a living increased the risk that the judgment could later be uncollectible. The court also found that Kast did not adequately address some of the Dillon factors and provided no evidence concerning another factor. The court denied the motion to stay without a bond.

Kast renewed his request to stop post-judgment discovery, again describing Erickson’s discovery as abusive, harassing, and expensive. The court found that his factual assertions were unsupported and that he had not shown that a protective order or stay was warranted. This portion of the second motion was denied.

Erickson separately requested sanctions and an order requiring Kast to comply with Judge Lloyd’s earlier discovery order. The court stated that those requests were not properly before it at that time. It directed the parties and Mariellen Baker to meet and confer about the status of Kast’s and Baker’s responses to the post-judgment discovery, and ordered a joint status letter by February 24, 2022.

Disposition

For these reasons, Judge Donna Ryu denied Kast’s motions to stay. The order did not grant Erickson’s requests for sanctions or to compel compliance; instead, it stated that those requests were not properly before the court and issued the meet-and-confer and status-letter directions.