Sixth Circuit Orders Remittitur of Punitive Damage Award in Bridgeport Music v. Justin Combs Case

Holding:

In this appeal, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ordered a remittitur of the award of punitive damages granted in favor of plaintiff copyright owners. In this infringement case filed against defendant music publishers for releasing an unlicensed sample of a copyrighted song, the Sixth Circuit held that the jury award of punitive damages in the amount of $3.5 million was unconstitutionally excessive and violated due process. In arriving at this conclusion, the court explained that such award should rightly be reduced, in the light of the Supreme Court’s three “guideposts” for evaluating the constitutionality of a punitive damages award, i.e., the reprehensibility of defendants' conduct, the disparity between plaintiffs' harm and the award, and a comparison of the award and civil penalties in comparable cases. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co. v. Campbell, 538 U.S. 408, 418, 123 S.Ct. 1513, 155 L.Ed.2d 585 (2003).

Detailed Summary:

Plaintiffs Bridgeport Music, Inc. and Westbound Records, Inc. are copyright owners of the Ohio Players’ Song “Singing in the Morning.” Defendant music publishers released the Notorious B .I.G. album Ready to Die, the title song of which contained an unlicensed sample of “Singing in the Morning.”

After plaintiffs brought suit against defendants for copyright infringement, a jury issued a verdict in favor of plaintiffs, awarding compensatory and punitive damages. Bridgeport elected statutory damages under the federal Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. Section 101 et seq., and received the maximum award of $150,000. Westbound received its one-half share of compensatory damages, $366,939,…

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