Skills to Pay MORE Bills: Beasties Win Attorneys’ Fees in TufAmerica Case

It has clearly been a couple of great years on the legal front for the surviving members of the Beastie Boys and the estate of Adam Yauch. The latest success occurred last week when a district court in New York awarded the Beasties and co-defendants Universal-Polygram International Publishing and Capital Records $845,597.23 in attorneys’ fees and costs after their win on summary judgment in the TufAmerica copyright infringement case. This comes after last year’s attorneys’ fees award in the Monster Energy case.

The court found that the defects in TufAmerica’s case, based in part on poorly written exclusive license agreements, were “readily apparent,” and the plaintiff’s claims “clearly without merit.” Because TufAmerica therefore did not even have standing to sue but nevertheless pursued its claims, according to the judge the attorneys’ fees and costs award was not a “close call.” The court chose to impose the penalty to make future plaintiffs think twice about pursuing “lawsuits in which chain of title has not been adequately investigated.”

Photo by bakameh (Flickr), CC BY 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons.