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The U.S. Marshals Service has made some progress in seizing the assets of copyright company Righthaven LLC, disclosing Thursday it has served a writ of execution on a Las Vegas bank branch.
A court filing said a writ of execution of a judgment against Righthaven was served Tuesday at a Bank of Nevada branch and that the writ says "seize all assets in the Righthaven LLC operating account and any other bank accounts belonging to Righthaven LLC." The bank branch's operations manager was served with the writ.
Shawn Mangano, an outside attorney for Righthaven, said the account contained less than $1,000 and that, despite the seizure order, Righthaven was continuing to operate Thursday.
The Marshals Service was told Nov. 1 to seize Righthaven assets to cover $63,720 in legal fees for Wayne Hoehn, a Kentucky man who defeated Righthaven in court when a judge dismissed a Righthaven copyright infringement lawsuit against Hoehn.
Since Righthaven was ordered to pay Hoehn’s legal fees, it has said it is unable to allocate funds for the Hoehn judgment — leading to charges by Hoehn’s attorneys that Righthaven has been fraudulently transferring assets in hopes of avoiding paying Hoehn.
Righthaven is denying those charges and Mangano said the company plans to contest a request that Righthaven CEO Steven Gibson and his wife be ordered to appear in court for a judgment debtor’s examination.
Righthaven, since March 2010, has filed 275 lawsuits claiming website operators, bloggers and message board posters had infringed on copyrights by posting material online — without authorization — from the Las Vegas Review-Journal and the Denver Post. Righthaven has suffered a series of setbacks with six judges ruling it lacked standing to sue because it didn’t control the copyrights it was suing over. In addition, three lawsuits were thrown out on fair use grounds.
Besides the bank account seizure in the Hoehn case, Righthaven was hit Thursday with an order in Colorado that it pay $33,147 in legal fees and costs incurred so far by Leland Wolf of the It Makes Sense blog, who defeated Righthaven in another copyright lawsuit.
Righthaven will likely appeal the fee award as it’s already appealed the order finding it lacked standing to sue Wolf.
During a 13-minute hearing in Denver before Senior U.S. District Judge John L. Kane, records show Kane “admonished Mr. Mangano for his lack of civility.”
Andrew Contiguglia of the Denver law firm Contiguglia/Fazzone P.C., one of Wolf’s attorneys, said the admonishment came after he asked Kane to sanction Righthaven and Mangano because Righthaven had forced the parties to have Thursday’s hearing on the reasonableness of Wolf’s fee request.
Kane scheduled the hearing after Righthaven didn’t file a response to the fee request that was due Oct. 28 and after Kane commented in a Nov. 2 order that, “Despite my encouragement to negotiate an informal resolution of this question, the parties have failed to do so.”
Righthaven’s position is that it didn’t object to the amount of money sought by Wolf’s attorneys as Righthaven feels the fee award will be overturned by the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Kane, however, suggested this information should have been communicated to the court so he and the attorneys could have avoided having Thursday’s hearing. He authorized Wolf’s attorneys to submit a bill for their time preparing for and attending Thursday’s hearing, which he’ll require Righthaven to pay. That will be on top of the $33,147 in fees he ordered Righthaven to pay Thursday.
The latest fee award is on top of one levied Oct. 26 for $119,488 in favor of Thomas DiBiase, who defeated Righthaven in yet another lawsuit.
An even larger fee award against Righthaven is likely in its failed lawsuit against the Democratic Underground.
Contiguglia said that in the end in Thursday's hearing in the Wolf case, Kane didn’t sanction Righthaven or Mangano — but did tell Mangano he expected the attorney to be more candid in the future.
Mangano, who participated in the hearing by telephone from Las Vegas, denied he had not acted in a civil fashion.
“At all times I have tried to diligently represent my client and acted with all degree of civility in dealing with very confrontational and seemingly unprofessional acts of opposing counsel, who have now resorted to unwarranted personal attacks,” Mangano said.