Facts

Plaintiff William Hablinski Architecture created building plans and design for a 20,000-square foot mansion in Bel Air. It accused Amir Construction and others of infringing on their copyrighted plans and design, and building a "copy cat" house in Beverly Hills. In 2005, a jury awarded plaintiff a $5.9 million verdict against all defendants. Later, the court reduced the award to $380,061 and granted a re-trial of damages under Section 504(b) of the Copyright Act.

PLAINTIFF'S CONTENTIONS:
The plaintiffs contended that the value attributed to the copyrights exceeded $5 million. It argued that defendants' house was a derivative work of their design and plans.

DEFENDANT'S CONTENTIONS:
The defendants claimed only a small portion of the alleged "copy cat" house was attributable to the plaintiff's copyrights.

Result

At trial, the jury found the fair market value of the alleged infringing residence was $13.5 million, and returned a reduced verdict of $666,930 as profits attributable to the copyright infringement.

Other Information

The court found that liability, copyright validity, and infringement were already established at the first trial and accordingly could not be re-opened at re-trial. At re-trial, the issues were limited to the fair market value of the home, allowable deductions from the fair market value, and apportionment of value attributed to plaintiff's copyrights. Defendant's counsel for the first trial was Ervin, Cohen & Jessup. Defendant's counsel for the retrial was Gordon Rees, LLP.

Length

two weeks