John S. Poulos of Sacramento California, is a commercial litigation attorney with Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP Attorneys. An experienced federal and state trial lawyer, John S. Poulos serves as vice chair of the Sacramento firm’s Commercial Litigation Practice. Lewis Brisbois recently sent out a client alert on the recent ruling by the US Supreme Court clarifying the awarding of attorney fees for copyright infringement cases. The US Supreme Court recently issued an overdue ruling that clarified the rules to be followed when US District Courts awarded attorney fees in copyright infringement cases. Before the ruling, the language of 17 U.S.C Section 505 necessarily mandated the District Courts to exercise discretion in awarding attorney fees. However, this resulted in inconsistent awards by the Appellate Courts and the District Courts when exercising their discretion. The recent ruling by the nation’s highest court in the case of Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons gave guidelines for the awarding of attorney fees. The ruling began by reiterating that “objective reasonableness” was an important factor to consider; that where a party put forward an objectively reasonable position and prevailed, attorney fees would be awarded in his/her favor. However, it went on to state that objective reasonableness was just one of the factors District Courts should put into consideration when awarding attorney fees. The Supreme Court gave instances in which the burden of paying attorney fees would shift. These include situations wherein a party’s litigation misconduct warrants it, to discourage further copyright infringement by a serial copyright infringer, and wherein the copyright holder is overaggressive with copyright claims.
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A seasoned litigator serving clients in Sacramento, California, attorney John S. Poulos serves as a partner at Lewis Brisbois. John S. Poulos counsels Sacramento clients, as well as those in surrounding areas, on commercial law. In addition to providing legal representation, the firm Lewis Brisbois hosts educational seminars regularly. “Los Angeles Employment & Workers’ Compensation Law” is among those slated for September 2016. The course takes place at 333 Universal Hollywood Drive in Universal City on September 22. It begins at 8:30 a.m. and ends at 3:30 p.m. Attendees will receive a comprehensive explanation regarding management of risks to limit claims related to employment and workers’ compensation. The seminar benefits workers’ compensation administrators, insurance claims managers, in-house legal professionals, and executives. Individuals tasked with employee relations should attend, as well. The course requires payment of a $75 fee. Upon completion, all attendees will receive four hours of continuing education credit. The credits will be documented in the form of a certificate, which participants receive prior to their departure. John S. Poulos is a Sacramento-based commercial litigator with Lewis Brisbois Bisgaard & Smith LLP. Commercial litigators represent businesses in lawsuits and handle many different types of cases. One case John S. Poulos worked on was a class action labor dispute, Duran v. U.S. Bank National Association. Class action lawsuits are 1) ones where there are many people (called a “class”) who share a common grievance and 2) the number of people affected is too many to bring before the court. In these cases, the court typically takes a sampling of the people involved to get a representation of the situation. It’s important for the sampling to be accurate in order to make an accurate ruling. In Duran v. U.S. Bank National Association, for example, the employees sued their employer on the basis that they were misclassified as exempt employees and as a result were not being paid overtime for their work. The employer claims because the employees spent more than 50 percent of their work time on outside sales duties, they were exempt from overtime. While the employees were initially awarded what was calculated as what was owed to them, the ruling was overturned on appeal because the California Supreme Court found that the trial court had failed to obtain a representative sample of employees, and therefore, the data used in its statistical analysis was flawed. |
AuthorJohn Poulos, a Managing Partner with Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP, has realized a number of successes over the course of his academic and professional careers. Archives
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