IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—E.D. Wis.: ‘Never wrestle with a pig’: lawsuit over pork chop photo leaves both parties out of pocket, (Mar 20, 2026)

By Matthew Hersh, J.D.

The parties spent a collective six figures in attorney fees for a 200 dollar jury verdict, and neither would recover attorney fees from the other.

A photographer and a restaurant owner who both claimed victory after a $200 jury verdict over a single photo of pork chops would each have to eat their own attorney fees, the federal court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin has held. The court, addressing an unusual question over the definition of the term “prevailing party” that had no clear answer in any binding precedent, found that the safest course of action under Seventh Circuit doctrine was to deny both parties their fees (Prepared Food Photos Inc. v. Jaber, No. 2:22-cv-00642-JPS (E.D. Wis. Mar. 18, 2026)).

The lawsuit was brought by Prepared Food Photos, a company that licenses “professional photographs for the food industry.” The company, which has been featured in these pages plenty of times before (e.g., here, here, and here) is not shy about aggressively protecting its copyrights. The target of the licensing company is Food Town Mart, a Milwaukee restaurant owned by Sharif Jaber, on grounds that it used one of the company’s photographs without permission in a Facebook post. The single photo at issue depicts four raw pork chops surrounded by garnishes on a wooden platter.

A jury hearing the case found that the restaurant had, indeed, infringed upon the photography licensing company’s rights. However, it awarded the company only $200 in damages for the infringement. Moreover, the jury found, the licensing company had overreached when it sued not only the restaurant but also its owner, Jabar, on a vicarious infringement claim. The court found in favor of the owner, not the licensing company, on that allegation.

Both sides, having expended heavily on this $200 case, now moved for attorney fees. The licensing company sought recovery of $69,000 in attorney fees on grounds that it had prevailed against the restaurant. The store owner, Jabar, sought his own award of fees—$50,000 in his case—for his successful defense of the vicarious liability claim. The two competing attorney fee motions led to this single opinion.

Prevailing party. The court found that neither party was entitled to attorney fees. In a copyright action, the court noted, it was entitled to, “in its discretion,” award “a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party.” But who was the prevailing party here? Theoretically, the court noted, both the licensing company and the restaurant could be considered prevailing parties—after all, the licensing company won a money judgment against the restaurant, and the owner won a dismissal with prejudice of the licensing company’s claim against him. Unfortunately for the parties, the court found, it was not that simple.

For one thing, the court noted, neither party appeared to be a prevailing party in the traditional sense in that neither came away with a full victory against the other. The closest on-point precedent, the court observed, as a Seventh Circuit case called Narkiewicz-Laine v. Doyle, 930 F.3d 897 (7th Cir. 2019). There, a plaintiff claimed damages under the Visual Artist Rights Act of 1990 for destruction of 1,457 pieces of artwork. The jury found that he was entitled to damages only in connection with four of those pieces—but not the rest. The district court declined to award the artist attorney fees, and the Seventh Circuit affirmed. After all, the court of appeals noted, the jury’s verdict in that case “point[ed] in two directions as to who prevailed.” The district court acted within its discretion to deny fees to the artist in that case. By extension, the court found, it would be within its right to deny fees to either the owner or the photography company here, as neither came away from the case with everything they wanted.

Nor did there appear to be any basis under the Copyright Act to simply declare both parties to be prevailing parties, the court found. One district judge in the Northern District of Illinois did exactly that, the court noted, in a case where a plaintiff won damages from one defendant after trial while a second defendant won a motion to dismiss for lack of jurisdiction before trial. The court declared both of those parties to be prevailing parties under those unusual circumstances. But most other federal courts, the court noted, had “rejected the notion that there can be more than one prevailing party for purposes of attorney’s fees under the Copyright Act.” Ultimately, the court noted, it would take the safe way out, as “it appears that the Court can validly determine under Seventh Circuit precedent that there is no prevailing party.” Thus, neither side would come away with an award of fees.

The Case is No. 2:22-cv-00642-JPS.

Judge: Stadtmueller, J.

Attorneys: Daniel Desouza (Copycat Legal PLLC) for Prepared Food Photos Inc. f/k/a Adlife Marketing & Communications Co. Inc. Amber L. Herda (Terschan Steinle Hodan & Ganzer Ltd.) for Sharif Jaber.

Companies: Prepared Food Photos Inc. f/k/a Adlife Marketing & Communications Co. Inc.

Cases: Copyright WisconsinNews