Li v. Arcsoft, Inc.
- Jeffrey White
- 4:19-cv-05836
- U.S. District Court · Northern District of California
- 2
In Li v. ArcSoft, Judge White denied ArcSoft and Michael Deng’s motion to stay execution of judgment.
ArcSoft, Inc. and Michael Deng were denied a stay of execution of the judgment; Lei Li, Strong Wealth Investment Limited, and Pacific Smile Limited were the opposing parties.
What happened
In Li v. ArcSoft, ArcSoft, Inc. and Michael Deng asked the court to pause enforcement of the judgment against them. The motion was submitted on March 19, 2024.
The court explained that pausing a judgment usually requires a full supersedeas bond, which protects the opposing party while an appeal or other proceeding is pending. Defendants did not show sufficient reasons to waive that usual requirement. Their proposed alternative of placing cash in a separate account also did not satisfy the court because they would still have access to the account and did not agree not to withdraw the funds.
Judge Jeffrey S. White denied the motion. The opinion states that defendants had not shown sufficient funds to make a bond unnecessary, and that a declaration showed ArcSoft had less than five times the judgment amount in cash.
The detailed version
- Li v. Arcsoft, Inc. · No. 4:19-cv-05836
- Jeffrey White
- Apr. 2, 2024
Motion and ruling
ArcSoft, Inc. and Michael Deng moved to stay execution of the judgment. A stay of execution would pause enforcement of the judgment. The court denied the motion.
Court’s reasoning
The court stated that a stay of judgment usually requires a full supersedeas bond. Such a bond generally protects the judgment holder from losing the immediate benefit of the judgment while enforcement is paused. Although a court may waive the bond requirement, the party seeking an unsecured stay must objectively show why departing from the usual requirement is justified.
The court found that defendants had not met that burden. They had not shown that they had sufficient funds to create no doubt about their ability to pay the obligation or to show that bond costs would be wasteful. The court also rejected defendants’ alternative proposal to place cash in a separate bank account because defendants would have access to the account and did not agree not to withdraw the funds. The court noted that Ms. Yan Jin’s declaration showed ArcSoft had less than five times the amount of the judgment in cash.
Disposition
Judge Jeffrey S. White ordered that defendants’ motion to stay execution of judgment was denied. The opinion does not state the underlying basis of the judgment or address the merits of the underlying dispute.
Read the full 2-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.