Less than a year after T.I. and Tameka “Tiny” Harris celebrated a whopping $71 million courtroom victory in a showdown with toymakers MGA for their OMG doll line misappropriating the likeness of the celebrity couple’s girl group OMG Girlz, they’re headed back to court after a judge reversed the decision.
The Harrises are set for a copyright infringement retrial after a judge – citing insufficient evidence supporting the punitive damages against toymaker MGA Entertainment – slashed their $71 million award down to $17.9 million.
“The court once again agrees that this evidence is insufficient to show willfulness or intent,” said Judge James V. Selna before continuing, “At best, this evidence shows that the designers saw a passing reference to the OMG Girlz and were negligent in not following up with the OMG Girlz having, themselves, been momentarily confused.”
According to Selna, the Harrises’ failure to show “deliberate intent” of infringement is why the $71 million decision ($17.9 million in compensatory damages and $53.6 million in punitive damages) was reversed to $17.9 million only – while the punitive damages were reduced to the tidy sum of $1.
“The court finds that while MGA’s conduct was not reprehensible, the $53.6 million verdict is within the reasonable and proportionate constitutional ratio for punitive damages and level with comparable civil penalties,” the new decision read.
Once the news landed on the desk of the Harrises, they quickly rejected it and filed a motion for a new trial.
“If in the end there is another mini-trial on just the punitive damages, we expect another jury will be similarly offended by MGA’s maliciousness and copying,” Sheppard Mullin, T.I. and Tiny’s attorney, relayed before attorney John Keville added, “The court’s order confirms what the jury found, that there was more than sufficient evidence to find MGA wrongly misappropriated and infringed the OMG Girlz’ rights. Obviously, the Harrises and the OMG Girlz are very disappointed that the jury’s appropriate assessment and response to MGA’s willful and bad faith conduct was discounted and not given the same weight.”
At writing, T.I. nor Tiny has made a public statement on the matter.
[photo source: Getty Images]