Harvest Aid, LLC sued Steven Paul, SP Releasing, LLC, and Echo Bridge Acquisition Corp., LLC for copyright infringement and circumvention of copyright protection systems. A jury returned a verdict in favor of Harvest Aid. Following the judgment, Harvest Aid filed a motion for attorneys' fees, and the defendants moved for a new trial under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59. The district court denied the new trial motion without addressing its merits because the defendants had not complied with the Central District of California's Local Rule 7-3, which requires counsel to contact opposing counsel to discuss a motion at least seven days before filing. The defendants had made repeated attempts to meet and confer, but Harvest Aid's counsel either did not respond or failed to appear for scheduled calls. The district court then granted Harvest Aid's second motion for fees and costs, leading to three consolidated appeals.
The Ninth Circuit applied an abuse of discretion standard to the district court's denial of the new trial motion. The court reasoned that Local Rule 7-3, like the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, should be liberally construed to ensure cases are tried on their merits. The appellate court found that the district court failed to give due weight to the defendants' substantial documented efforts to comply with the rule. Defendants had retained new counsel who requested a meet-and-confer, but Harvest Aid's counsel refused to respond or failed to show up. The court noted that denying the motion effectively acted as a dismissal with prejudice due to the strict, non-extendable 28-day deadline for Rule 59 motions. Consequently, the strict enforcement of the local rule without equitable consideration deprived the defendants of a merits-based trial. Regarding the fees and costs, the court held that the 14-day deadline for fee motions is tolled while post-trial motions are pending. Since the new trial motions were vacated and remanded, the fee motion was timely. However, the court reversed the costs award, clarifying that under 28 U.S.C. §§ 1821 and 1920, only the six statutory categories of costs are taxable, and the district court had erroneously included non-taxable costs.
The case is remanded to the district court to consider the substantive merits of the defendants' motions for a new trial. The district court's award of attorneys' fees stands, but the award of costs is vacated and must be recalculated to include only the six categories of taxable costs. If the district court grants the new trial motions on remand, it will likely vacate the fee award as well. The decision reinforces that local procedural rules must be applied equitably and cannot be used to deprive parties of a trial on the merits when they have acted in good faith.
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