Feltner v. Columbia Pictures Television

523 U.S. 340 (1998)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

Feltner (D) owned three television stations, and Columbia (P) licensed several series to these stations. After D became delinquent in making royalty payments, they entered into negotiations to restructure the debts. These discussions were unavailing, and P terminated the license agreements. D continued to broadcast the programs and P sued D for copyright infringement. P sought various forms of relief under the Copyright Act including a permanent injunction, impoundment of all copies of the programs, actual damages or in the alternative statutory damages and costs and attorney fees. The court entered partial summary judgment for P for the copyright infringement claims. During the course of litigation, P dropped all claims against all parties except for D on the copyright claims. P then exercised its rights to recover Statutory Damages under 504(c). The court then denied D’s request for a jury trial on statutory damages. After a two-day bench trial, the judge held that there had been 440 acts of infringement and found that the infringement was willful and fixed statutory damages at $20,000 per act of infringement. The judge ruled that P was entitled to $8,800,000 in damages plus costs and attorney’s fees. The Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit affirmed and rejected D’s argument that he was entitled to a jury trial to determine statutory damages. The Supreme Court granted certiorari.