Rice v. Musee Lingerie, LLC
- Alison Nathan
- 1:18-cv-09130
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Rice v. Musee Lingerie, Judge Nathan denied reconsideration of a bond order and granted the parties’ request to propose an amended case schedule.
John Curtis Rice’s copyright lawsuit was affected because his request to undo the bond requirement was denied. Musee Lingerie, LLC remained entitled to seek a bond, subject to Rice’s seven-day response and the court’s later decision on the amount. Both parties were required to submit a proposed amended case schedule.
What happened
Rice v. Musee Lingerie, LLC is a copyright case in which the court had previously ordered Rice to post a bond before continuing the lawsuit, while reserving the bond’s amount.
Rice asked the court to reconsider that earlier order, arguing that the court had overlooked legal authority, made an error, and violated his constitutional rights. The court also considered the parties’ joint request to submit an amended case schedule.
Judge Alison J. Nathan denied Rice’s reconsideration motion because some arguments repeated issues already decided and the others were raised too late. She granted the joint scheduling request, allowed Rice seven days to respond to the defendant’s proposed bond amount, and said the court would later set an appropriate bond.
The detailed version
- Rice v. Musee Lingerie, LLC · No. 1:18-cv-09130
- Alison Nathan
- Dec. 5, 2019
Background
John Curtis Rice sued Musee Lingerie, LLC, alleging copyright infringement under 17 U.S.C. §§ 106 and 501. After the court entered a case-management plan, Musee Lingerie asked the court to require Rice to post a bond before proceeding with the case.
In a July 3, 2019 Opinion and Order, the court granted the bond motion under Local Rule 54.2. It concluded that the expected legal costs and Rice’s compliance, or lack of compliance, with earlier court orders supported requiring a bond. The court did not yet set the amount. Instead, it directed Musee Lingerie to provide more information supporting a proposed bond of $15,000 to $25,000 and allowed Rice to respond.
Musee Lingerie later submitted information supporting a bond of at least $20,000. Rice did not respond to that submission; he moved for reconsideration of the July 3 order under Local Rule 6.3 and Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 60(b)(1). The parties also jointly moved to submit a proposed amended case-management plan and scheduling order.
Rice’s Reconsideration Arguments
The court explained that reconsideration is an extraordinary remedy. It is generally available only when the moving party identifies an intervening change in controlling law, new evidence, or a clear error or manifest injustice. A reconsideration motion cannot be used to present new arguments or to relitigate issues the court already decided.
Rice raised five arguments: (1) the court overlooked Supreme Court authority concerning recoverable costs under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 68 and copyright law; (2) the court made an error by relying on possible fee-shifting without reviewing the defendant’s Rule 68 offer; (3) his First Amendment right to petition the government preempted Local Rule 54.2; (4) applying Local Rule 54.2 violated equal protection because, according to Rice, it had been applied to individual copyright holders but not corporations or limited liability companies; and (5) the court improperly relied on noncompliance by Rice’s attorney rather than by Rice himself.
The court rejected the first and fifth arguments because Rice had already made them in opposing the original bond motion, and the court had already rejected them. The court stated that it had expressly considered the Supreme Court authority Rice claimed it had overlooked. The court rejected the second, third, and fourth arguments without considering their substance because Rice had not raised them in his earlier opposition papers.
Rulings and Next Steps
The court DENIED Rice’s motion for reconsideration. The earlier bond order therefore remained in place, but the court had not yet selected the bond amount. Rice could file a response to Musee Lingerie’s request for a bond of at least $20,000 within seven days of the order. The court stated that it would review the submissions and impose a bond in an appropriate amount.
The court also GRANTED the parties’ joint motion to submit a proposed amended case-management plan and scheduling order. The parties were directed to submit the proposal within fourteen days. The post-discovery conference scheduled for December 6, 2019 was adjourned without a new date. Judge Alison J. Nathan stated that the order resolved docket entries 41 and 50.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.