Appeals Court Rules That GTA5 Didn't Infringe On Lindsay Lohan's Likeness Rights

from the now-please-go-away dept

While there are absolutely far too many Techdirt posts featuring celebrity(?) Lindsay Lohan in these pages, most of them deal with one specific issue: her lawsuits against Take Two Interactive. At issue was a character Lohan insisted infringed on her likeness rights because the character is a drunk driver, public-fornicator, and has a backstory as a child actress. If Lindsay wants to insist that her own history lines up with that sort of backstory, I guess I won't argue with her, but the character has many other aspects that clearly have nothing to do with Lohan. Instead, the character is a parody of the sort the GTA series is famous for, with the target in this case being young celebrity stars and starlets. Coming along for the ride was Karen Gravano, who participated in a reality show about the wives of reported mobsters. Gravano sued over another character in the series with her filings essentially mirroring Lohan's. Take Two won both lawsuits, both on First Amendment grounds and due to the court finding that the characters were composite parodies, not representations of either Lohan or Gravano. Both plaintiffs appealed.

And now the New York Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of Take Two again in both cases.

Here, the Jonas character simply is not recognizable as plaintiff inasmuch as it merely is a generic artistic depiction of a 'twenty something' woman without any particular identifying physical characteristics. The analysis with respect to the Beach Weather and Stop and Frisk illustrations is the same. Those artistic renderings are indistinct, satirical representations of the style, look, and persona of a modern, beach-going young woman. It is undisputed that defendants did not refer to plaintiff in GTAV, did not use her name in GTAV, and did not use a photograph of her in that game. Moreover, the ambiguous representations in question are nothing more than cultural comment that is not recognizable as plaintiff and therefore is not actionable under Civil Rights Law article 5.

You can read the full opinion here, but suffice it to say that this should be the end of this nonsense from Lohan. At the same time, the court also ruled on Gravano's appeal, with identical findings.

Concurrently with this opinion comes a loss for ex-Mob Wives star Karen Gravano, who brought a similar lawsuit against Take-Two over the character of "Andrea Bottino" in Grand Theft Auto V. The appeals court fails to see a recognizable image there as well.

That should be the end of that as well. One wonders just how much in legal fees both Gravano and Lohan were billed, with the next natural thought being just how much better such funds could have been used other than to engage in a prolonged legal fight without merit, with almost no chance of success, and over an issue that was not injurious to either party? Lohan in particular has a history of looking for paydays in the form of these types of lawsuits, but it's difficult to see how she could be in the black at this point.

It would probably be best to simply save that money for the future.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, gta, karen gravano, likeness, lindsay lohan, ny, publicity rights
Companies: take two interactive

Lindsay Lohan Won't Put Her GTA5 Lawsuit Out Of Its Misery

from the game-not-over dept

Here is something you, the dear Techdirt reader, may not have known about me: I had always thought that there was only one proper spelling for the name "Lindsey." I'm not sure why I thought that, but I was certain that name was only spelled with an "e" before the "y." But, it turns out, spelling it as "Lindsay" is a perfectly common and accepted alternate spelling for the name. And the only reason that I now know that is because Linsday, with an "a," Lohan will not let her lawsuit against Take-Two Interactive -- for appropriating her likeness for several characters, which didn't actually happen -- die its final death.

First, a refresher. Lohan decided that a side quest character in Grand Theft Auto 5, which was actually an amalgam of several Hollywood starlet tropes, violated her publicity rights. She also claimed that an entirely different character that was used on some of the game's marketing and packaging was also her and also violated her publicity rights. The case wove its way through the past half-decade, largely with the court and Take-Two casting narrow eyes at the mountains of paperwork Lohan's legal team was able to produce while somehow maintaining an inability to come up with claims that were in any way credible, before the court finally tossed the lawsuit entirely. The court at the time made it clear that Take-Two's characters weren't direct appropriations of Lohan's likeness and that the parody amalgam starlet it had created was clearly protected by the First Amendment.

But, for some reason, it appears that LiLo's legal team was, like, "nuh uh!"

Lindsay Lohan has been granted an appeal in her lawsuit against the maker of the Grand Theft Auto video games. Last year, the Appellate Division Courthouse of New York State tossed the case, stating it was without merit. Her appeal was accepted by the New York Court of Appeals on 16 February.

It must be nice to have the kind of money required to keep the legal team going on a lawsuit that's been a loser at every turn. Still, it's perplexing that this lawsuit hasn't been put out of its misery at this point. The nature of the characters and their status as protected speech seems as clear cut as it gets. And, perhaps more importantly, the character that Lohan is desperate to associate herself with for the purposes of this lawsuit is one that is depicted engaging in sex acts in a public setting and being photographed doing so. I'm struggling to understand why one would want to engage in this kind of legal reach under those circumstances.

Her legal staff should be informing her that it's time to give this whole thing the Ol' Yeller treatment. Why they aren't doing so is beyond me.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, gta 5, lindsay lohan, publicity rights
Companies: take two interactive

Take Two Interactive Wins Two Publicity Rights Lawsuits Against Lindsay Lohan And Karen Gravano

from the mean-girls dept

Hopefully you will recall that Take Two Interactive had been facing down two lawsuits brought by Lindsay Lohan and Karen Gravano over character depictions in the company's opus, Grand Theft Auto V. Both filed suit over publicity rights and likeness concerns in New York. Lohan claimed that a character in the game that evaded paparazzi after having sex in public and made some oblique references to similar-sounding movies that Lohan had acted in, along with a female character on the game's cover art, were both ripping off her personage. Gravano, meanwhile, claimed that a different character, one which made references to starring in a reality show about mobster wives and evading mob retribution, was ripping off her personage. While both suits failed to address the fictional differences in the characters, which were both composite characters parodying their celebrity archetypes, Take Two attempted to defend itself with those facts and tried to get the case dismissed. Strangely, the court at the time allowed the case to move forward...

...and now the appellate division has reversed course and tossed both cases out.

On Thursday, New York's appellate division first department took a look at both this case as well as one involving ex-Mob Wives star Karen Gravano, who brought a similar lawsuit against Take-Two over Grand Theft Auto V. Gravano had filed a $40 million complaint over the character of "Andrea Bottino," who allegedly used the same phrases the plaintiff did, had a father who was a government informant and had a mutual connection with reality television. Gravano's suit was given a green light by the same trial judge in the Lohan lawsuit.

The court's decision makes it clear that both lawsuits, brought for publicity rights reasons, don't stand up to New York's law. First and foremost, this is because the characters in the game aren't a direct composite of either plaintiff.

Both Gravano's and Lohan's respective causes of action under Civil Rights Law § 51 "must fail because defendants did not use [plaintiffs'] name, portrait, or picture'" (see Costanza v Seinfeld , 279 AD2d 255, 255 [1st Dept 2001], citing Wojtowicz v Delacorte Press , 43 NY2d 858, 860 [1978]). Despite Gravano's contention that the video game depicts her, defendants never referred to Gravano by name or used her actual name in the video game, never used Gravano herself as an actor for the video game, and never used a photograph of her (see Costanza at 255; see generally Wojtowicz at 860). As to Lohan's claim that an avatar in the video game is she and that her image is used in various images, defendants also never referred to Lohan by name or used her actual name in the video game, never used Lohan herself as an actor for the video game, and never used a photograph of Lohan (see Costanza at 255).

And, second, because the kind of depiction being discussed in these cases is protected First Amendment speech, as should have been obvious from the outset.

Even if we accept plaintiffs' contentions that the video game depictions are close enough to be considered representations of the respective plaintiffs, plaintiffs' claims should be dismissed because this video game does not fall under the statutory definitions of "advertising" or "trade" (see Costanza at 255, citing Hampton v Guare , 195 AD2d 366, 366 [1st Dept 1993], lv denied 82 NY2d 659 [1993] [stating that "works of fiction and satire do not fall within the narrow scope of the statutory phrases advertising' and trade'"]; see generally Brown v Entertainment Merchants Assn. , 564 US 786, 790 [2011] ["(l)ike the protected books, plays, and movies that preceded them, video games communicate ideas . . ." and deserve First Amendment protection]). This video game's unique story, characters, dialogue, and environment, combined with the player's ability to choose how to proceed in the game, render it a work of fiction and satire.

Meanwhile, one imagines that the legal teams for both women have been handsomely paid for not informing their respective clients of the futility of these lawsuits from the outset. I mentioned early on in these posts that the legal team for Take Two ought to have been able to stroll into court in their underwear, scream "Parody! First Amendment!" and immediately walk out of the courtroom victorious. That it had to go to much more trouble than that is unfortunate, but it's still good to see the court get this right.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, gta v, karen gravano, lindsay lohan, publicity rights
Companies: take two interactive

Surprise: Court Allows Lindsay Lohan's Suit Against Take-Two Interactive To Go Forward

from the bwah? dept

Somehow and for some reason, the head-scratching lawsuit between actress Lindsay Lohan and Take-Two Interactive continues to move forward. If you'll recall, in 2013 Lohan began asking her lawyers about suing Take-Two over what she claimed wrongly was a direct depiction of herself in the game Grand Theft Auto 5. The character in question is clearly a composite parody of all kinds of Hollywood starlets, in part composed of references to Lohan's antics, and in part composed of references to other starlets' antics. Which is ultimately entirely besides the point, because the depiction is parody in nature and that really should have been the end of all of this. Except Lohan's legal team moved forward with the suit, and even amended it to include as much paperwork as possible, all while asserting that her legal claims could get around the statute of limitations on bringing the suit because Take-Two had manipulated the cover image for the game, which featured a bikini-clad girl Lohan also claims is a depiction of herself, in order to fit it on the DVD the game was shipped with.

It seemed for all the world like a case destined to be tossed at the court's earliest convenience, which of course is why the judge instead has proudly proclaimed that the suit can move forward.

On Friday, New York Supreme Court judge Joan Kennedy wrote she must make all inferences in Lohan's favor at this stage, can't rely upon defendants' documents aiming to show the images in question don't show Lohan and ruled that the actress' statements in her pleading had sufficiently alleged causes of action to merit a denial of the dismissal motion. The judge also rejected Take-Two's argument that Lohan had brought her lawsuit too late.

From the ruling itself:

Defendants have not been able to prove, at this juncture of the litigation, that the republication exception to the one year statute of limitations is not applicable to this case because the intended audiences were the same as those of the original publication and the images remained the same. Plaintiff specifically alleges facts which contend otherwise.

Now, earlier in the ruling, Judge Kennedy notes that the court is required, for requests by defendants for dismissals such as these, that pretty much everything about the case must be interpreted in the most generous manner towards the plaintiff. That said, it seems crazy that the court doesn't bother to understand at this point of the case that the "re-publishing" that Lohan's team is alleging consists only of resizing an image to fit on a DVD. Take-Two went so far as to ask for sanctions on Lohan for so meritless a legal claim, yet the court takes only a surface look at all of this and sides with Lohan on procedural grounds.

And so now discovery will begin, assuming Take-Two doesn't bow out and settle. Which it shouldn't, because this lawsuit shouldn't survive.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, gta 5, lindsay lohan, publicity rights
Companies: take two interactive

Amended Complaint From Lindsay Lohan Against Take Two: Now With Five Times More Paper!

from the publicity-wrongs dept

When we last left the saga of Lindsay Lohan's 10 page complaint against Take 2 Interactive over a publicly-fornicating, drunk-driving character in Grand Theft Auto 5 that she insisted was her own spitting image, Take 2 was asking for the whole thing to be dismissed because the character is obviously not a reproduction of Lohan at all, but a parody take on celebrity fame. In addition to that, Take 2 also mentioned that the statute of limitations may have expired on the issue, since it had been well over a year since the side-mission featuring the alleged-Lohan-doppelganger had been announced and publicized.

Well, Lohan's legal team has responded with...paper. Lots more of it, actually. Her amended complaint comes in at a whopping sixty-seven pages and it's chock-filled with images of Lohan in what she's insisting proves that Take 2 used her image as a basis for Lacey Jonas.

Lohan's lawyers have now reacted to this gambit by on Wednesday stuffing 45 pages of pictured exhibits into an amended complaint, including a photograph of the game CD, one of which features a blonde, red bikini-clad woman holding up the peace sign. According to the amended complaint, the game publisher "used a look-a-like model to evoke the persona and image" of Lohan by imitating a photograph that was once taken of her in 2007. On some of the game discs, the blonde character that Lohan asserts is her doppelganger is shown in what the lawsuit calls "an arrest pose known as the 'Stop and Frisk.'"

A female celebrity holding up a peace sign? Clearly nobody besides Lindsay Lohan has ever been photographed doing that.

Lindsay looks different these days.

Anyway, her legal team is trying to get around New York's publicity rights laws, which are limited to the realm of advertising, by including all kinds of images of the Lacey Jonas character that Take 2 put on t-shirts and coffee mugs. Except, of course, that none of that was in the original complaint and the character in question still isn't a direct reproduction of Lindsay Lohan. It's a composite parody on L.A. female celebrities in general and it's protected speech due to its nature.

As for how the Lohan legal team is attempting to get around the statute of limitations...whoo boy.

Lohan has reacted to this defense by talking about the "republication" of her image upon the release of the actual videogame later that year. According to the amended lawsuit, Take-Two modified her image to fit on the game disk. Lohan now claims that this "modification" should satisfy the exception to the one-year statute of limitation.

It's the same image sized to fit onto a DVD disc...and that somehow excuses her not taking action for over year because why exactly? In the end, hopefully the court will see this legal action for what it is: a misunderstanding of parody and the first amendment coupled with a plea for attention.

Filed Under: grand theft auto 5, gta 5, lindsay lohan, new york, publicity rights
Companies: take 2 interactive

Take 2 Goes On The Offensive Against Lindsay Lohan

from the live-by-the-sword... dept

We've come to know Lindsay Lohan quite a bit here at Techdirt, chiefly around the way she appears to see the American legal system as her own publicity engine. After making a name for herself for filing claims against all kinds of companies she somehow thinks are using her image in the most subtle way possible, she recently decided to file a publicity rights claim against Take Two Interactive, makers of Grand Theft Auto 5. See, Lindsay saw the GTA character Lacey Jonas drive drunk and screw in public in the fifth installment of the series and decided that was totally her.

Take Two Interactive, thankfully, isn't taking the lawsuit lying down. They don't just want the case dismissed; they want Lohan sanctioned by the court as well.

"Lindsay Lohan complains that her image and persona have been wrongfully used by Take-Two in the video game Grand Theft Auto V, but her claim is so legally meritless that it lacks any good-faith basis and can only have been filed for publicity purposes," states the defendant's memorandum to support dismissal.

The idea of placing a monetary sanction on an individual abusing the legal system is tantalizing enough on its own; to have this done to the insipid Lindsay Lohan, attacker of free speech, parody and video games, super-charges the attractiveness of the possibility. It's high-time that the publicity rights trend gets taken down a few notches, if not completely abolished. Any step in that direction would be welcome.

You might wonder how a filing like this, one which might result in payment going the opposite direction, could get past Lohan's legal team. As we've noted before, she isn't the best judge of who to hire as a lawyer, it seems.

In taking on Take-Two, Lohan has dispensed with the lawyers who were caught plagiarizing in the Pitbull case in favor of new legal representation that spelled her first name "Lindsey" in one part of the complaint.

Take Two Interactive is essentially arguing that the claims by Lohan are without merit, something she and her team should have been aware of considering the results of the action against Pitbull, which found that creative works, even if for sale, are protected in the event of parody. I had already figured the company would win this for that reason, but if we can start sanctioning celebrities making spurious claims, all the better.

Filed Under: grand theft auto 5, gta 5, lindsay lohan, publicity rights, sanctions
Companies: take 2 interactive

Lindsay Lohan Moves Forward With Lawsuit Against GTAV

from the dragging-yourself-through-the-muck dept

And we're back with another episode of Lindsay Lohan Sues People For Stuff They Didn't Do. It's been a while, so you may not remember that Lohan, who has been quite lawsuit-happy in the past, was reportedly discussing filing a likeness-rights suit against the makers of Grand Theft Auto 5, claiming that a character in the game is based on her. That was in December of last year and apparently over six months of her lawyers explaining to her what parody is hasn't taken, because reports are now coming out that she has indeed filed in a New York court.

Lindsay Lohan is suing the makers of the "Grand Theft Auto" video games. The actress says the latest installment used her image and created a character based on her without her permission. Lohan's lawsuit says a character named Lacey Jonas is an "unequivocal" reference to the "Mean Girls" and "Freaky Friday" star. The suit says Lohan's image, voice and styles from her clothing line are depicted. It says the game features West Hollywood's Chateau Marmont hotel, where Lohan once lived.

Once again, lawyers for GTA5 should be able to walk into the courtroom, softly say the word "parody", and then walk right the hell back out victorious. But, as I previously described, Lohan's allegations are way more fun than that. She claims that two separate characters are based off her in the same game, including a character that is described as a drunk driver and who enjoys fornicating in public places. One would think that a person would want to avoid claiming a likeness to such a thing, but that's apparently not the case with old LiLo. Worse yet, while there may be some obvious draws on Lohan's life story to create this parody, there are several aspects of both characters that clearly have nothing to do with her and are simply composites of celebrity culture in order to create a funny homage to the L.A. celebrity lifestyle.

As other commentators note, suing over this kind of thing has little chance of going anywhere.

As a general matter, you will not be held liable for using someone's name or likeness in a creative, entertaining, or artistic work that is transformative, meaning that you add some substantial creative element over and above the mere depiction of the person. In other words, the First Amendment ordinarily protects you if you use someone's name or likeness to create something new that is recognizably your own, rather than something that just evokes and exploits the person's identity.

As I mentioned in the last post, I've played this game, played this mission, and I didn't once even think about Lindsay Lohan. The character is just mocking celebrities that get themselves into trouble and generally behave like entitled miscreants. The only reason I now associate those kind of personality flaws with Lindsay Lohan is because she insisted on it through this lawsuit that will likely fail. So...well done all around, Lindsay!

Filed Under: grand theft auto 5, gta 5, likeness, lindsay lohan, privacy rights, publicity rights
Companies: rockstar games, take two interactive

Lindsay Lohan Is Reportedly Asking Her Lawyers About Going After GTA5 For Non-Portrayal

from the buckets-of-crazy dept

Lindsay Lohan, everyone's favorite train-wreck, sure seems to come up in the world of intellectual property an awful lot. I'm not sure if this is because she has some over-inflated sense of entitlement, or if she's just the devil-incarnate here to entertain me personally, but she's gotten angry about being mocked in music, angry about a talking baby being named Lindsay (and being a "milkaholic"), and angry at the invention of the video camera for showing her stealing stuff that didn't belong to her.

But now reports are that she's looking to step up her game by going after Grand Theft Auto 5 over their portrayal of her, except that (as with the E-Trade babies) it wasn't a portrayal of her at all. Let's take her reported claims to her lawyers in order:

-- The video game cover shows a woman holding a cellphone who looks Lindsay-ish. There's been debate over whether it looks more like Kate Upton or Shelby Welinder.

No, there's no debate. Shelby Welinder was hired by Rockstar Games to serve as the game cover's woman. Next.

-- Part of the game features a mission where a Lindsay Lohan look-alike asks the player to take her home and escape the paparazzi.

If you've played the game, and I have, and you played the paparazzi missions and thought, "holy balls, they're making fun of Lindsay Lohan!", then you need severe psychiatric care. The character in question, Lacey Jonas, is an obvious composite character. The closest thing to referencing Lohan is that Lacey Jonas is famous and once starred in a "cheerleader competition" movie. Sounds like Lohan, except that all the other facts about the character don't and the character doesn't look like Lohan, which sort of kills the whole "they stole my likeness" claim. As does claiming you were also used for a completely different character.

Another part of the game shows another Lindsay-like character at a hotel resembling the Chateau Marmont hotel in West Hollywood -- a place Lindsay not only frequents but once lived at -- and the mission is to photograph her having sex on camera.

We've got more problems, in that this completely different character, Poppy Mitchell, is a recurring character in the series. While that wiki states that this character might be a parody of Lohan, it certainly isn't much of a likeness beyond the character having been convicted of drunken driving.

And all of this is a bit beside the point. Even if each and every one of these characters were somehow a lifting or reference to Lindsay Lohan, it ought to be covered under the same blanket of parody that covers pretty much everything else in GTA5, given that the entire setting is a mocking look at Los Angeles. And I'm not sure what Lohan's legal team is planning on doing with her request to look into all of this, but continuing with the claim that video game characters with the personality traits of fornicating in public, drinking and driving, and being washed up movie stars probably isn't something she should be loudly pointing to as representing her.

Filed Under: grand theft auto, gta 5, lindsay lohan, publicity rights

Judge: Mocking Lindsay Lohan Is Allowed; Plagiarizing A Court Filing, Not So Much

from the all's-well-that-ends-well dept

You may recall a couple of years ago, we wrote about the latest in a series of ridiculous lawsuits filed by Lindsay Lohan, whose lawyer seems to have a rather creative way of interpreting the law at times. This time, it involved suing the rapper Pitbull for mentioning Lohan in a song. Pitbull has a song with the lyric: "I got locked up like Lindsay Lohan." Lohan's lawyers tried to argue that this violated Lohan's publicity rights under NY state law (a law designed to stop unauthorized product endorsements), as well as defamation law. The lawsuit was absolutely ridiculous from the very beginning, but took a slight detour into the absurd when Lohan's lawyer, Stephanie Ovadia, responded to one of Pitbull's filings with the most bizarre filing you'll ever read. The entire thing was basically long cut-and-pastes from various online sources, with no credit given whatsoever. Many of the copied passages had nothing to do with the lawsuit at hand, and some others were simply completely nonsensical. Like this one:

The threshold of consciousness is the dividing line between something that can be processed by the conscious mind and something that enters the subconscious mind without any such processing. A hidden message is not intense enough to produce a sensation but has sufficient intensity to influence the behavior and mental processes of one's mind. The decisions the conscious mind makes are based upon the knowledge and reasoning skills one has developed through experience and education....

What that had to do with the lawsuit was anyone's guess, but it was copied from an online student essay.

Earlier this week, the judge (not surprisingly at all) dismissed the lawsuit on First Amendment grounds:

The Supreme Court has made clear that "[m]usic, as a form of expression and communication, is protected under the First Amendment." Ward v. Rock Against Racism, 491 U.S. 781, 790 (1989). Thus, because the Song is a protected work of art, the use of plaintiff’s name therein does not violate the New York Civil Rights Law.

Furthermore, the court went on to note that even if the lawsuit wouldn't have been thrown out on purely First Amendment grounds, the case had no chance, because Pitbull's use of Lohan's name wasn't for advertising purposes, or to imply she somehow endorsed the song. Lohan's lawyer tried to argue that because Pitbull made money from the song, and Lohan's name was in it, the use was "purposes of trade," which is (yet again) a rather unique interpretation of what the law is clearly about, so the court pointed out that this, too, was hogwash.

The fact that the Song was presumably created and distributed for the purpose of making a profit does not mean that plaintiff’s name was used for “advertising” or “purposes of trade” within the meaning of the New York Civil Rights Law.

Going one step further, the court noted that even if the First Amendment didn't suffice, and even if they found that the user of Lohan's name was for the purposes of advertising or trade, the case still would have failed:

Even if the Court were to conclude that plaintiff had sufficiently alleged that her name was used in the Song for purposes of advertising or trade, the isolated nature of the use of her name would, in and of itself, prove fatal to her New York Civil Rights Law claim. “Courts in New York are reluctant to impose liability under §§ 50-51 for incidental use of a person’s name or image because of the danger of imposing an uncalled-for burden and hazard on publishers.”

The court also dismissed Lohan's other ridiculous claims, including "unjust enrichment" and "intentional infliction of emotional distress," basically stating that neither claim appears to make any sense at all.

Pitbull's lawyers had hit back and asked for sanctions against Ovadia for her rambling cut-and-paste legal filing, and they got those too. Ovadia tried to defend herself first by throwing another lawyer in her office under the bus and saying it was all his fault, but then also that the filing was an early draft that had been filed incorrectly. The only problem? The "final" draft that she offered up as a replacement still contained much of the plagiarized text. So she was sanctioned $750 for lying to the court:

The Redline demonstrates that, contrary to Attorney Ovadia’s assertions in the Letter, not one of the changes in the proposed amended opposition would have corrected or cured the plagiarized portions of the Opposition. Instead, most of the changes to the plagiarized portions of the proposed amended opposition were merely corrections and insertions of citations to case law.... Attorney Ovadia, who is represented by her own counsel in connection with the sanctions motion, does not respond to the allegation that her representation in the Letter – i.e., that the proposed amended opposition would have “obviated any alleged plagiarism concerns” – was, in fact, untrue. Based on the fact that Attorney Ovadia made this undisputedly false representation to the Court, and pursuant to the Court’s inherent powers, Attorney Ovadia is hereby fined in the amount of $750.00. This amount shall be paid by Attorney Ovadia and shall be made payable to the Clerk of the Court on or before March 22, 2013.

And then there was another $750 sanction for the plagiarism itself. The court practically laughs off Ovadia's attempt to throw her colleague under the bus as well. Ovadia tried to claim that sanctions weren't appropriate because "additional fact-finding would be necessary" to determine who really wrote the filing. The court points out, in response, that Ovadia was the one who signed the filing, so the responsibility is all on her:

With respect to defendants’ allegations that the majority of the Opposition was plagiarized, plaintiff and her counsel do not deny these assertions. Indeed, defendants’ submissions to the Court evidence that almost the entire text of the Opposition is taken from unidentified, unattributed sources. (See Jimenez Decl., Ex. A.) Obviously, this type of conduct is unacceptable and, in the Court’s view, is sanctionable pursuant to its inherent powers. Attorney Ovadia takes the position that the Court should refrain from imposing sanctions because “additional fact-finding will be necessary” to determine which of plaintiff’s two attorneys is responsible for the plagiarism and/or the degree to which any such responsibility should be apportioned between them. (See Ovadia’s Sanctions Opp’n at 9.) The Court recognizes that Attorneys Ovadia and Ahuja dispute which of them drafted the final version of the Opposition that was ultimately filed. It is clear, however, that only Attorney Ovadia signed the Opposition. In the Court’s view, this leaves Attorney Ovadia solely liable for the sanctionable plagiarism. Cf. Kiobel v. Millson, 592 F.3d 78, 87 (2d Cir. 2010) (“‘The person signing, filing, submitting, or advocating a document has a nondelegable responsibility to the court, and in most [situations] should be sanctioned for a violation.’”) (quoting Fed. R. Civ. P. 11 advisory committee note). Accordingly, pursuant to the Court’s inherent power, Attorney Ovadia is hereby fined an additional $750.00 which shall also be made payable to the Clerk of the Court on or before March 22, 2013.12

While the court notes that the $1,500 in sanctions is relatively small, it also notes that it chose this number accounting for the additional "negative impact on Attorney Ovadia’s reputation and livelihood that will inevitably arise from her involvement in this situation."

The one area where Pitbull's lawyers failed was in their attempt to force Lohan to also have to pay their fees. The court noted that despite Lohan's claims failing, they didn't fail at a level that would have made them "frivolous." Also, the court said that the plagiarized filing didn't lead to any real additional work for Pitbull's lawyers. The court also slaps the wrists of Pitbull's lawyers for failing to directly raise the issue of the plagiarized filings with Ovadia, despite corresponding with her after realizing that the filing was plagiarized.

Filed Under: first amendment, free speech, lindsay lohan, pitbull, plagiarism, publicity rights, sanctions, stephanie ovadia