Cohen v. United States

100 Fed. Cl. 461, 101 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1974, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1607, 2011 WL 3438467
United States Court of Federal Claims·Decided August 3, 2011·No. No. 07-154 C·Published·Cited by 31 cases

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

HEWITT, Chief Judge.

Before the court are the United States’ Second Motion for Partial Summary Judgment to Deny Dr. Cohen’s Claim for Lost Profits from Lost Sales of His Allegedly Infringed Works to the Public; to Deny Any Award of Damages for Willful Infringement; and to Limit Any Statutory Damage Award to the Minimum of $750 Per Work (defendant’s Motion for Partial Summary Judgment or Def.’s Mot.) and defendant’s Appendix (Def.’s App.), filed November 19, 2010, Docket Number (Dkt. No.) 62; United States’ Proposed Findings of Uncontroverted Facts in Support of its Second Motion for Summary Judgment (DFUF), filed November 19, 2010, Dkt. No. 63; Plaintiffs Response in Opposition to the United States’ Second Motion for Partial Summary Judgment (plaintiffs Response or Pl.’s Resp.) and plaintiffs Appendix (Pl.’s App.), filed January 28, 2011, Dkt. No. 75; Plaintiffs Response to United States’ Proposed Findings of Uncon-troverted Facts in Support of its Second Motion for Summary Judgment (Pl.’s Resp. to DFUF), filed January 28, 2011, Dkt. No. 76; and the United States’ Reply in Support of its Second Motion for Partial Summary Judgment to Deny Dr. Cohen’s Claim for Lost Profits from Lost Sales of His Allegedly Infringed Works to the Public; to Deny Any Award of Damages for Wilful Infringement; and to Limit Any Statutory Damage Award to the Minimum of $750 Per Work (defendant’s Reply or Def.’s Reply) and defendant’s Appendix (Def.’s Reply App.), filed February 25, 2011, Dkt. No. 77.

Also before the court are the United States’ Motion to Preclude Expert Testimony of Ivan Zatkovich (defendant’s Motion to Strike or Def.’s Mot. Strike) and defendant’s Appendix (Def.’s App. Strike), filed February 25, 2011, Dkt. No. 78; Plaintiffs Response in Opposition to Defendant, the United States’ Motion to Preclude Expert Testimony of Ivan Zatkovich (Pl.’s Resp. Strike), filed March 28, 2011, Dkt. No. 81; and United States’ Reply in Support of its Motion to Preclude Expert Testimony of Ivan Zatko-vich (Def.’s Reply Strike) and defendant’s Reply Appendix (Def.’s Reply Strike App.), filed April 14, 2011, Dkt. No. 86.

In addition, before the court are the United States’ Brief Addressing the Effect of This Court’s Order and Opinion of April 14, 2011 on Pending Motions (defendant’s Brief or Def.’s Br.), filed May 20, 2011, Dkt. No. 89, and Plaintiffs Brief in Response to Defendant, the United States’ Brief Addressing the Effect of this Court’s Order and Opinion of April 14, 2011 on Pending Motions (plaintiffs Response Brief or Pl.’s Resp. Br.), filed May 27, 2011, Dkt. No. 90.1

[466]*466I. Background

Dr. Norman H. Cohen (Dr. Cohen or plaintiff) brought an action for copyright infringement against the United States government, acting through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (United States, FEMA, government or defendant). Civil Action Complaint (Complaint or Compl.), Dkt. No. 1, at ¶¶ 5, 10. Plaintiff contends that the United States willfully infringed his copyrights in at least six of his works when it displayed the works on FEMA’s website without Dr. Cohen’s permission, thereby making the works available to FEMA employees and to the public. Compl. ¶¶ 5,10-12; see PL’s Resp. to DFUF ¶ 2.

Plaintiff retained Ivan Zatkovich “to render ... expert opinions on the hardcopy and internet publishing and damages issues” in this case. PL’s Resp. Strike 2; see PL’s Resp. to DFUF ¶ 23. Mr. Zatkovich has provided an initial expert report and a supplemental expert report, as well as deposition testimony and an affidavit. On July 10, 2009 plaintiff provided Mr. Zatkovich’s initial expert report to defendant. See Def.’s Mot. Strike 1; PL’s Resp. Strike 2; Def.’s App. Strike A15-A82 (Zatkovich Initial Expert Report). In his initial expert report, Mr. Zatkovich set forth the following two theories of recovery for actual damages, the first of which applies to the public’s access to the works on FEMA’s website, and the second of which applies to the use of the works by FEMA employees: (1) as to the public’s access, lost profits from lost sales of copyrights ed works to the public that Dr. Cohen would have received but for FEMA’s infringement (utilizing a 15 to 17.5 percent royalty rate as set forth in clause 7(a) of Dr. Cohen’s HRD Press contracts), Def.’s App. A562 (Zatkovich Initial Expert Report), and (2) as to the FEMA employees’ use, lost royalties that would have accrued from licensing fees for the value of the alleged use of the works by two thousand FEMA employees (utilizing the 50 percent royalty rate set forth in clause 7(c) of Dr. Cohen’s HRD Press contracts), Def.’s App. A565 (Zatkovich Initial Expert Report). “The government is only moving for summary judgment on Dr. Cohen’s claim to the first category of damages, i.e., to lost profits that he allegedly would have made outside of FEMA.” Def.’s Mot. 5.

By letter dated August 3, 2009, in order to correct “ ‘minor errors in the totals’ ” listed in Mr. Zatkovich’s Initial Expert Report, plaintiff provided defendant a supplemental expert report from Mr. Zatkovich dated July 24, 2009. Def.’s Mot. Strike 1 (quoting Def.’s App. Strike A12 (Zatkovich Supplemental Expert Report)); see PL’s Resp. Strike 2; Def.’s App. Strike A10-A13 (Letter from Jonathan M. Cohen to Susan L.C. Mitchell and Zatkovich Supplemental Expert Report). Mr. Zatkovich did not provide any additional theories for recovery of damages in his supplemental expert report. See Def.’s App. Strike A12-A13 (Zatkovich Supplemental Expert Report).

On December 28, 2009 defense counsel deposed Mr. Zatkovich. See Def.’s App. Strike A270-A410 (Zatkovich Dep.). As to damages for the public’s use of Dr. Cohen’s works from FEMA’s website, Mr. Zatkovich’s deposition testimony departed from his expert [467]*467report — where he had calculated damages based solely on lost profits from lost sales that occurred as a result of the infringement — and discussed damages in the form of a licensing fee based on the value of use theory of actual damages. See Def.’s App. Strike A387-A390 (Zatkovich Dep.) (colloquy between Mr. Zatkovich and plaintiffs counsel); Def.’s App. Strike A395-A396 (Zatko-vich Dep.) (colloquy between Mr. Zatkovich and defense counsel). Mr. Zatkovich testified that he had “considered using the licensing fee calculation estimation that [he] used for the internal cost to FEMA and extrapolate that to the external damages,” Def.’s App. Strike A387 (Zatkovich Dep.), but decided not to include the methodology and the calculations for the value of use theory as applied to the public in his expert report because he “chose not to use that particular approach,” Def.’s App. Strike A396 (Zatko-vich Dep.).

On January 22,2011 plaintiff untimely filed his response brief to defendant’s second motion for partial summary judgment, to which he attached an affidavit by Mr. Zatkovich dated January 21, 2011, see App. to Pl.’s Resp. in Opp’n to the United States’ Second Mot. for Partial Summ. J., Dkt. No. 72, at A002-A010 (Zatkovich Aff.). Stating that he had experienced problems with the court’s electronic filing system, plaintiff requested that the court deem his response timely filed and that the court permit him to add a title page to the document. Pl.’s Mot. for Relief Under RCFC 30 Regarding Pl.’s Resp. in Opp’n to the United States’ Second Mot. for Summ. J., Dkt. No. 73, at 1-2. On January 28, 2011, with the court’s permission, see Order of January 25, 2011, Dkt. No. 74, plaintiff filed a corrected response brief, to which he again attached the affidavit by Mr.

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Cohen v. United States, 100 Fed. Cl. 461, 101 U.S.P.Q. 2d (BNA) 1974, 2011 U.S. Claims LEXIS 1607, 2011 WL 3438467 (uscfc 2011).

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