Appeals Court Orders Redo of Fee Award in Copyright Lawsuit

A district court failed to explain its methodology for calculating $500,000 in attorneys’ fees in an architecture firm’s failed copyright suit, requiring the award to be vacated and remanded, a federal appeals court ruled Friday.

The decision to grant the award to Mako LLC, doing business as Padua Realty Company, didn’t analyze whether the company properly segregated the fees for its claims and conduct a proper lodestar-fee analysis, the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit said in a per curiam opinion. The appeals court, though, rejected Loeb Architects LLC and its owner’s arguments that the district court ...