Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. v. Rossi
- Naomi Buchwald
- 1:20-cv-06534
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 4
In Joe Hand Promotions v. Rossi, Judge Buchwald granted reconsideration, increased damages from $2,500 to $5,000, and left costs and attorney’s fees unchanged.
Joe Hand Promotions received an increased damages award. Marisol Rossi and Solace Bar & Grill, Inc. remained subject to the default judgment, with damages increased from $2,500 to $5,000 and the original costs and attorney’s fees left unchanged.
What happened
In Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. v. Rossi, the court had previously entered a default judgment awarding Joe Hand Promotions $2,500 in damages, $715 in costs, and $4,180 in attorney’s fees after an unauthorized broadcast of a pay-per-view fight.
Joe Hand Promotions asked the court to reconsider the damages amount and increase it to $13,400. It argued that the court had not given enough weight to deterrence and had overlooked that this was a second case involving the defendants’ unauthorized broadcast and failure to defend themselves.
Judge Naomi Buchwald granted the reconsideration motion and increased the damages award to $5,000. The court left the original awards of $715 in costs and $4,180 in attorney’s fees unchanged.
The detailed version
- Joe Hand Promotions, Inc. v. Rossi · No. 1:20-cv-06534
- Naomi Buchwald
- Jan. 26, 2023
Background
On August 30, 2022, the court granted Joe Hand Promotions’ motion for default judgment. It awarded $2,500 in damages, $715 in costs, and $4,180 in attorney’s fees, for a total of $7,395. The case concerned the unauthorized commercial broadcast at Solace Bar & Grill of the August 26, 2017 fight between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor.
The court’s original damages analysis concluded that Joe Hand Promotions’ actual damages were essentially nonexistent because Solace, described as a small establishment, would not ordinarily have paid the $6,700 licensing fee. The court relied on evidence that approximately 67 patrons watched the fight and paid a $20 cover charge. It stated that the original award could be viewed as a reasonable approximation of a disgorgement penalty, meaning an amount intended to strip away an improper benefit.
Motion for Reconsideration
Joe Hand Promotions moved for reconsideration on September 15, 2022. It sought $13,400, described as twice the $6,700 licensing fee, rather than the $27,515 requested in its original motion. The plaintiff argued that the court had made a clear error by undervaluing deterrence. It also argued that the court had failed to consider that this was the second case in the district involving the defendants’ unauthorized broadcast of pay-per-view programming and the second time they had not defended the case.
The court stated that it had already recognized deterrence as an important consideration and had simply disagreed that enhanced damages were required in this context. The court also noted that Joe Hand Promotions had not identified the earlier enforcement action in its original submission, even though the original decision had stated that there was no indication of a previous enforcement action against the defendants.
Ruling
The court granted Joe Hand Promotions’ motion for reconsideration because the newly presented information about the earlier enforcement action might reasonably have changed the court’s prior conclusion. It modified the damages award from $2,500 to $5,000. The original awards of $715 in costs and $4,180 in attorney’s fees remained unchanged.
Read the full 4-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.