IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—9th Cir.: Court to reconsider new trial motion in Harvest Aid copyright infringement suit, (Apr 23, 2026)

By Sherri M. Schroeder, J.D.

The court vacated and remanded the order denying the motion after the lower court abused its discretion by failing to give due weight to good-faith efforts to comply with Local Rule 7-3.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has vacated and remanded an order denying the motion made by Steven Paul, SP Releasing, LLC, and Echo Bridge Acquisition Corp., LLC (Defendants) for a new trial after a jury returned a verdict in favor of Harvest Aid, LLC, for copyright infringement and circumvention of copyright protection systems in violation of 17 U.S.C. §§ 501 and 1201. After that judgment was entered, Harvest Aid filed a timely motion for attorney fees and costs, and Defendants timely moved for a new trial under Rule 59 of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure. After the district court denied the motions for failure to comply with the pre-filing conference of counsel requirements under Central District of California Local Rule 7-3 and its Civil Standing Order, without reaching the merits of the motions, the district court subsequently granted Harvest Aid’s second motion for attorney fees and costs. The Defendants then appealed. The appeals court found that the district court had abused its discretion in denying Defendants’ motions for a new trial because it failed to give due weight to Defendants’ “good-faith” efforts to comply with Local Rule 7-3 and Harvest Aid’s “opportunistic” refusals to cooperate, “thereby depriving Defendants of an opportunity to litigate the merits of their motions for a new trial” (Harvest Aid, LLC v. Wax Works, Inc., No. 24-7375 (9th Cir. Apr. 22, 2026)).

Local Rule 7-3. Local Rule 7-3 requires that “counsel contemplating the filing any motion” first contact opposing counsel to discuss the substance of the contemplated motion “at least 7 days prior to the filing of the motion.” Failure to comply may result in the motion being denied, per the rule. The district court’s Civil Standing Order contains a similar requirement.

Attempts. According to the record in the appeal at hand, the Defendants repeatedly attempt to meet and confer with Harvest Aid’s counsel prior to filing their motions for new trial. They retained a new firm 12 days before the filing deadline “to handle limited post-trial matters.” Although not counsel of record, this firm requested to meet and confer on the contemplated motion for new trial, but Harvest Aid’s counsel never responded, maintaining they did not have to because the firm was not counsel of record. However, the court noted that Harvest Aid’s counsel had been told why the firm was retained and that it had the authority to request the meeting. After an emergency motion, that firm withdrew and another firm was substituted. That new firm also requested a conference on the motion, but Harvest Aid’s counsel failed to join the scheduled call.

The Federal Rules of Civil Procedure should be “liberally construed to effectuate the general purpose of seeing that cases are tried on the merit,” according to the appeals court. “The same is true of local rules,” added the court. Therefore, the court vacated the district court’s order denying Defendants’ motions for a new trial and remanded so that the district court could consider the merits of Defendants’ motions in the first instance.

Attorney fees and costs. The appeals court also affirmed in part and reversed in part the district court’s award of attorney fees and costs. Because the Defendants did not appeal the award of attorney fees on any basis other than their argument challenging the timeliness of Harvest Aid’s motion for such fees, which was mooted by the court’s decision on Local Rule 7-3, the appeals court affirmed the district court’s award of attorney fees. The appeals court, however, noted that the district court may vacate or modify the award based on the disposition of the motions for a new trial or any other matter that subsequently arises. However, the appeals court reversed the district court’s determination of costs. Harvest Aid had specified $16,355.65 in taxable costs in its bill of costs; however, the district court had awarded $26,638.80. Under 17 U.S.C. § 505, a party is entitled to recover only the six categories of taxable costs specified in the general costs statute codified at 28 U.S.C. §§ 1821 and 1920. Therefore, the district court’s award was erroneous, and the appeals court reversed in part the award of non-taxable costs.

Because the appeals court did not reverse the fees-and-costs award on timeliness grounds, it did not reach the merits of Harvest Aid’s conditional cross-appeal of the order denying the first motion for attorney fees and costs. The court, therefore, dismissed this appeal as moot.

The Case is No. 24-7375.

Judge: NA.

Attorneys: Kelsey Marie Schultz (Doniger Burroughs, APC) for Harvest Aid, LLC. Raymond Paul Katrinak (The Kernan Law Firm) for Wax Works, Inc.

Companies: Harvest Aid, LLC; Wax Works, Inc.

Cases: Copyright CaliforniaNews