Gaffney v. Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC
- George Daniels
- 1:18-cv-08770
- U.S. District Court · Southern District of New York
- 3
In Gaffney v. Muhammad Ali Enterprises, Judge Daniels ruled on trial-evidence motions, granting some, denying others, and denying one as moot.
Michael Gaffney and the listed defendants—Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC; Authentic Brands Group LLC; Roots Of, Inc., doing business as Roots of Fight; and Does 1–10—were affected by the limits on trial evidence and damages arguments.
What happened
In Gaffney v. Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC, Michael Gaffney and the defendants asked the court to decide what evidence and arguments could be presented at trial in the two related actions. Gaffney sought to add photographs and limit evidence about approvals, licenses, and damages experts’ opinions.
The court denied all three of Gaffney’s motions. It granted the defendants’ motions to exclude evidence about certain damages from more than three years before the relevant claims, a “scarcity multiplier,” and a “competitive use multiplier.” The court denied the defendants’ other requests to exclude evidence about revenues or profits, an expert’s testimony, and several trial exhibits, and denied as moot a request to file another motion about fan-site evidence.
Judge George B. Daniels stated that the rulings were made for the reasons given at the February 27, 2024 pre-trial conference and directed the Clerk of Court to close the listed motions.
The detailed version
- Gaffney v. Muhammad Ali Enterprises LLC · No. 1:18-cv-08770
- George Daniels
- Feb. 27, 2024
Background
This order addresses motions about evidence and arguments for trial in two related actions. The order says that Judge Daniels gave the reasons for the rulings on the record at the February 27, 2024 pre-trial conference; those reasons are not set out in the provided text. The order identifies 23 photographs as the photographs at issue for trial, based on those identified in Michael Gaffney’s March 3, 2022 letter to the Court.
Rulings on Gaffney’s motions
- Gaffney’s Motion in Limine No. 1, seeking to add 13 additional photographs to the actions, was denied.
- Gaffney’s Motion in Limine No. 2, seeking to prevent the defendants from introducing evidence or argument that they sought approval for, or that Gaffney approved, the use or licensing of photographs to third parties for merchandise or advertising—apart from two specific approvals—was denied.
- Gaffney’s Motion in Limine No. 3, seeking to prevent the defendants’ expert from testifying about the defendants’ incremental profits, was denied.
Rulings on the defendants’ motions
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 1, seeking to prevent Gaffney from offering evidence or argument about alleged damages incurred more than three years before he filed the relevant claims, was granted, without prejudice to restoring such claims if the Supreme Court’s decision in Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy reversed the Second Circuit’s decision in Sohm v. Scholastic Inc.
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 2, seeking to exclude Gaffney’s expert testimony about a damages “scarcity multiplier,” was granted.
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 3, seeking to exclude Gaffney’s expert testimony about a “competitive use multiplier,” was granted.
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 4, seeking to prevent Gaffney from introducing evidence or argument about damages based on the defendants’ revenues or profits, was denied.
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 5, seeking to exclude testimony from Gaffney’s expert allegedly consisting of legal conclusions and factual narrative, was denied.
- The defendants’ Motion in Limine No. 6, seeking to exclude Gaffney’s Trial Exhibits 8, 13, 32, and 36, was denied.
- The defendants’ letter motion to file an additional motion in limine concerning evidence about fan sites was denied as moot.
Clerk’s directive and effect
The Clerk of Court was directed to close the listed motions in docket 18 Civ. 8770 and docket 20 Civ. 7113. This order resolves the identified pre-trial evidence motions; the provided text does not state a ruling on the underlying claims.
Read the full 3-page opinion on CourtListener, the free public archive maintained by the Free Law Project.