Will the Canadian Voltage Reverse Class Action Now Fizzle?

I have been writing about Voltage, copyright trolls,  and mass litigation in Canada and elsewhere for almost seven years (beginning on September 9, 2011  here).

On August 9, 2018 the Supreme Court of Canada dismissed Voltage Pictures et al’s application for leave to appeal from a judgment from the Federal Court of Appeal (FCA) affirming the Federal Courts’ February 2, 2017 order regarding security for costs but for very different reasons. That order required that Voltage must pay $75,000 into court for security for costs “forthwith” pursuant to Federal Courts Rule 416.  This case is the very controversial “reverse class action” in which Voltage and  a few others are trying to sue more than 50,000 individuals at once. This is an unprecedented and arguably completely unforeseen and unintended use of the relatively new Federal Courts rules permitting class actions.

For reasons that are not apparent, the FCA’s decision has only just been posted very belatedly on August 13, 2018, although it was rendered on November 15, 2017. I presume that this was an oversight. It’s unfortunate, because this proceeding was a major milestone in the ongoing efforts by Voltage and others to sue tens of thousands of individuals through this reverse class action and in approximately 15 current mass litigation law suits naming hundreds of “Does”. For example, one such action, that of Bodyguard Productions, has 726 “Doe” defendants. Another, Morgan Creek, as 352 Doe Defendants. Both of these strategies – namely the “reverse class action” and the 15 or so mass litigation lawsuits – are being pursued by the law firm of Aird and Berlis, LLP. The lead counsel is Mr. Kenneth “Ken” Clark, whose name has arisen before on this blog. Interestingly, most of these 15 mass litigation proceedings began after the Federal Court ordered the payment into court “forthwith” of $75,000 for security for costs on February 2, 2017.

I do not know at this time what connection, if any, Voltage has with these 15 or so mass litigation actions. However, there are at least some connections. There is apparently a possible connection between Voltage and Morgan Creek in action T-71-18. There is also an apparent possible connection between Voltage and Dallas Buyers Club in action T-1674-16. 

The SCC’s refusal to grant leave to appeal to Voltage will come as good news to the potential 50,000 or so defendants in this very unusual and indeed unprecedented “reverse” copyright class action. One person, Mr. Robert Salna, was singled out by Voltage to represent thousands of potential class members. As luck would have it, Voltage chose quite possibly the very worst possible representative person from Voltage’s standpoint, Mr. Robert Salna, who is a landlord whose internet account allegedly “was used (likely by his tenants) to unlawfully distribute all of the films at issue in the underlying proceeding.”  Mr. Salna clearly has some means, has stood on principle and has good counsel.

I have previously written about how Voltage’s attempt to use a “reverse class action” in the USA was tossed by a federal district court judge in Oregon in 2013.

Naturally, each of the 50,000 or so defendants in this “reverse class action” may have had a different factual story to tell. Moreover, as any copyright lawyer in Canada knows, there is no Canadian case law establishing liability involving the use of BitTorrent technology by individuals.  In any event, even if there is liability in such a case, the amount of actual damage by any individual is likely to be minimal – since the cost of streaming or buying a movie is at most a few dollars. The range of statutory minimum damages for non-commercial activity is $100 to $5,000 and Canadian courts are consistent in ruling that statutory minimum damages must bear a correlation to actual damages. Even $100 is arguably far more than any reasonable measure of actual damage attributable to one individual in the circumstances as alleged.

There are approximately 50,000 class members as estimated by the plaintiffs in this proposed class action. If each of them is held liable for the maximum statutory damages amount of $5,000 for infringement of one work, that could lead to damages of $250,000,000. Even at the $100 low end of the range, the judgment could be in the realm of $5,000,000. In fact, several works are involved in this proposed class proceeding

In this instance, Voltage is attempting to sue at least 50,000 individuals for a total court filing fee of $50 for an “application.”  This is in contrast to a normal “action”, which would normally require a filing fee of either $150 or $50 for each separate lawsuit, the latter being available only for a “simplified action” when the amount claimed does not exceed $50,000.

So, if Voltage pursues its strategy and succeeds in getting this reverse class action certified, it will get to sue at least 50,000 individuals for a court filing fee of less than $0.001each – that’s less than a tenth of a cent.

Voltage and the other plaintiffs were unwilling to put up any security for costs, which is a very normal step at the outset of any Federal Court litigation when, inter alia, the plaintiff is a non-resident entity or when it does not provide an address. See Federal Courts Rule 416.

Voltage had argued the Federal class action regime was designed to prevent costs awards, including any “security for costs” requirement.

334.39 (1) Subject to subsection (2), no costs may be awarded against any party to a motion for certification of a proceeding as a class proceeding, to a class proceeding or to an appeal arising from a class proceeding, unless

·        (a) the conduct of the party unnecessarily lengthened the duration of the proceeding;

·        (b) any step in the proceeding by the party was improper, vexatious or unnecessary or was taken through negligence, mistake or excessive caution; or

·        (c) exceptional circumstances make it unjust to deprive the successful party of costs.

Voltage wanted to argue that the class action mechanism in the Federal Courts Rules is intended to immunize plaintiffs from costs except in very limited circumstances. However, the Federal Court of Appeal ruled that the nature of a reverse class action may well be an example of when “exceptional circumstances make it unjust to deprive the successful part of costs”. The motions judge in this instance, Justice Boswell, awarded $75,000 security for costs because he reasoned that the certification motion had not yet been filed.

The FCA convincingly ruled that Justice Boswell got the right result but for the wrong reason:

[8] Notwithstanding this, I believe that the Federal Court’s order should nonetheless be upheld as there is an alternate basis for finding that the Court possessed the jurisdiction to make it. In the exceptional circumstances of this case, which involve a proposed reverse class proceeding brought by foreign corporations with no significant assets in Canada against a proposed class potentially comprised of thousands of individuals resident in Canada, it is entirely possible that, if he is successful, the respondent might be awarded costs under Rule 334.39(1)(c). This paragraph allows for costs in respect of a certification motion, a class proceeding or an appeal arising from a class proceeding if “exceptional circumstances make it unjust to deprive the successful party of costs”. Such circumstances could well be found to exist in the present case, but that issue will not be addressed unless and until the Federal Court dismisses the certification motion.

[9] The circumstances in Rules 416(1)(a) and (b) apply, and, therefore, but for this being a proposed class proceeding, the Federal Court would be empowered to make an order for security for costs. I do not believe that the fact that this is a proposed class proceeding forecloses the Federal Court from making such an order in the present case. More specifically, I do not believe that a determination under Rule 334.39(1)(c) is a condition precedent to the exercise by the Federal Court of its discretion under Rule 416 to order security for costs in a case such as this, and there is nothing in the Rules or the case law of this Court that would require such a conclusion.

…

[11] If the appellants were correct in the interpretation they urge, an order for security for costs could never be made in the case of a class proceeding involving exceptional circumstances as a determination under Rule 334.39(1)(c) cannot be made until a determination on the merits is made. In my view, such an interpretation is untenable as it could well deprive a representative defendant like Mr. Salna of any realistic hope of recovering the costs he might eventually be awarded.

[12] Moreover, it appears that none of the access to justice concerns that motivate the prima facie no-costs regime enshrined in the Rules for class proceedings militates against the order for security in the instant case. The appellants appear to be fully able to bring their action, and, indeed, had two lawyers gowned before this Court on this appeal. In addition, they declined to file any evidence detailing their financial means to retain and instruct counsel or to post the required security for costs. On the other hand, the respondent and other members of the proposed class will likely face difficulty in funding representation. Thus, there is no principled basis for finding that an order for security for costs should not be made in the present case and there is no binding authority that indicates that the Federal Court erred in making such an order. I therefore believe that it was open to the Federal Court to make the impugned order for security for costs.

[13] Nor do I see any basis to interfere with the quantum of the security set by the Federal Court, a discretionary factual determination that this Court cannot interfere with in the absence of palpable and overriding error. The appellants can point to no such error here, particularly in light of the magnitude of the expenses incurred to merely litigate the motion for security. Further, if the appellants are right and the Samuelson-Glushko Canadian Internet Policy and Public Interest Clinic will be intervening in the certification motion and carrying the bulk of the argument, it would be possible for the appellants to seek to have the Federal Court vary its order and decrease the amount of the security for costs they are required to provide. Indeed, in its reasons, the Federal Court commented on just such a possibility.

[14] Thus, I would dismiss this appeal.

The Supreme Court of Canada is not going to hear Voltage’s appeal regarding the security for costs order. As usual, they don’t provide reasons. The bottom line is that the FCA decision stands as controlling precedent.

Thus, the takeaway from all this is arguably as follows:

• A “reverse class action” is indeed an “exceptional circumstance” and any foreign plaintiff must be prepared to put up potentially substantial security for costs at an early stage and potentially even more to follow at later stages if such an action ever gets certified, which is far from being clearly likely, for reasons beyond the scope of this blog

• Voltage may also be liable for reasonably substantial costs for the motion for security for costs.

It will be extremely interesting to see whether Voltage now proceeds in this controversial “reverse class action”. If it wishes to proceed, it must put up $75,000 now and may be liable for substantial costs of the vigorously opposed security for costs motion in due course. I have previously noted how a prior Voltage foray in the Federal Court against Tekksavy customers fizzled when it was ordered to pay substantial costs. In fact, notwithstanding the Federal Court’s order of February 2, 2017 that the $75,000 for security for costs be paid into court “forthwith” (which means in a matter of days, not months or years), it apparently has still not been done, which seems rather odd. That order was not stayed by the unsuccessful appeal to the FCA or the subsequent unsuccessful leave to appeal application to the SCC.

Moreover, it will also be very interesting to see whether the possibly greater awareness amongst lawyers and even self-represented defendants about Federal Courts Rule 416  and “security for costs” will have any impact on the 15 or so mass litigation lawsuits against thousands of “Doe” defendants that were also launched by Mr. Clark.

Stay tuned.

HPK

Voltage, TekSavvy and The Cost of Taking a Position to Take “No Position” - "Nice Work If You Can Get It"?

The long awaited decision by Prothonotary Roza Aronovitch of the Federal Court regarding TekSavvy’s claim to entitlement to $346,480.68  “on a full indemnity basis to make it whole for the costs it says it incurred as a result of Voltage’s motion” has now been released. Spoiler alert – TekSavvy got only $21,557.50 – about 6% of what it asked for overall. And of that, only $4,500 was for legal costs, which were sought in the amount of $178,820.98.  That’s 2.5% of what was asked for in legal costs. Further spoiler alert: both Voltage and TekSavvy are appealing Prothonotary Aronovitch's ruling. Here’s the docket and here’s the notice of motion for the TekSavvy appeal dated March 27, 2015. I’ve been waiting on this posting partly because I didn’t want to say anything prior to the appeal deadline. And since it is now being appealed by both sides and the appeal has not yet been heard, I will say less about this case at this time than I might otherwise. In any event, I’ve had lots to say about this case in the past.  However, I should at least bring readers up to date.

It will be recalled that TekSavvy took the position that it “took no position” on the Voltage disclosure motion. This appears to have been a key factor in the Federal Court’s refusal to reward TekSavvy and its counsel with almost $180,000 in legal fees.

Ironically, if TekSavvy had actually opposed Voltage’s motion, it may well have been in a much better position to successfully seek costs.  Prothonotary Aronovitch cites Justice von Finckenstein’s ruling on costs in a similar case where two the ISPs actively opposed the disclosure motion:

[44] Justice von Finckenstein goes on as follows at para 35:

[35] Clearly the process that is sought to be imposed on the ISPs

would be costly and would divert their resources from other tasks.

Given that the ISPs are in no way involved in any alleged

infringement, they would need to be reimbursed for their

reasonable costs for furnishing the names of account holders, as

well as the legal costs of responding to this motion.

[Emphasis added]

[45] In that case, the Court ultimately denied the motion but awarded the costs of the motionto the third party ISPs who had opposed it.

(emphasis added)
 

I must respectfully and explicitly disagree, which I rarely do, with Prof. Michael Geist; however, I must do so about this case. He has been very supportive of TekSavvy throughout. He had a blog the other day entitled “Defending Privacy Doesn’t Pay”.  In my view, it would be more accurate to say that defending privacy can and does pay if done vigorously and out of principle – both in terms of legal costs and subscriber good will. Moreover, full indemnity legal costs are very rarely recovered in Canadian litigation. Responsible ISPs should expect to incur some non-recoverable legal costs for defending their customers’ privacy as part of their “cost of doing business”. Indeed, speaking generally and not necessarily about this case, it’s arguable that ISPs have a positive duty to actually oppose ill-founded motions for disclosure and that failing to do so could expose them to liability - but that’s another topic for another day.
 
There is also the explicit suggestion in Prothonotary Aronovitch ruling that TekSavvy should have put its cards on the table regarding TekSavvy’s costs much earlier:

[73] Whatever the reason, the parties’ failure to address the costs of the motion is an oversight that cannot now be remedied by subsuming them within the legal costs of abiding by the Order. This applies equally to the legal costs claimed on account of TekSavvy’s attendances at the motion to intervene and the various motions to adjourn. In that connection, counsel for TekSavvy conceded at the hearing of this motion that the costs of appearing before Justice Mandamin for a further adjournment could not be claimed as Justice Mandamin explicitly determined that no costs should be awarded in respect of the adjournment.

Prothonotary Aronovitch was rather obviously displeased with both sides, as her conclusion on costs of the costs motion reveals:

[129] …It may be said that success is divided and that costs should therefore not be awarded. Rather, no costs of the assessment will be awarded because neither party should be rewarded for its conduct: TekSavvy, without justification, has greatly exaggerated its claim, while Voltage has unreasonably sought to trivialize it based on unreliable and largely irrelevant evidence.

TekSavvy’s position of taking “no position” effectively meant that it did virtually nothing to protect its subscribers’ privacy other than to play for time to send out an arguably unnecessary notice to its potentially affected customers and attend for adjournments in order to let a law school clinic, CIPPIC, seek leave to and eventually intervene in the case. TekSavvy may not be Bell or Rogers but it is a very successful commercial entity with about $5- $10 million a month in estimated cash flow.  As to the notices, Prothonotary Aronovitch commented:

[64] While the Court has the discretion to order a party to give notice, the Rules do not require TekSavvy to have provided notice of the motion to its affected clients. TekSavvy acted voluntarily and on its own initiative. Whether it acted out of altruism or self-interest is irrelevant.

I have been insistent, persistent and consistent in the past in challenging TekSavvy’s “no position” position.  Indeed, it may have been arguable that the evidence in this case was no better and perhaps even worse than the evidence in the BMG case  (in which I was counsel for CIPPIC) over a decade ago, where Shaw, Telus and CIPPIC were successful in stopping the plaintiff American record companies in in their tracks because their evidence was essentially all hearsay and unreliable. The plaintiffs then were unable or unwilling to provide reliable non-hearsay evidence sufficient to justify piercing the privacy rights of the ISPs subscribers. The roadmap in the current case was perfectly clear based on the BMG case. Indeed, the landmark ruling of Justice Von Finckenstein was upheld in all essential respects by the Federal Court of Appeal. Here’s a balanced discussion of the rulings.

In the end, TekSavvy did nothing in the current case to challenge the adequacy of Voltage’s arguably inadequate evidence and to stop the disclosure motion from proceeding. It did not cross-examine on Voltage’s affidavit material in connection with the actual disclosure motion. Instead, TekSavvy chose to vigorously cross-examine to recover its alleged costs of $346,480.68 – for legal and other technical costs resulting from having taken no position and complying with the order.

Defending privacy is not remotely equivalent to supporting piracy. It is an ISP’s job under PIPEDA to ensure that disclosure in situations such as this happens only pursuant to a court order. As I said earlier, if that order is not warranted, for example because the evidence may be clearly inadequate, it is arguably the ISPs job to oppose the motion. Anyway, it can’t be “CIPPIC to the rescue” every time there’s a mass litigation attempt and it’s absurd to expect one or more individual subscribers to shoulder this responsibility of fighting for the privacy of themselves and thousands of others. They pay good money to their ISPs to do that, and ISPs generally do very well indeed finically in Canada.

CIPPIC ended up doing a good job on the policy side about the negative aspects of trolling and speculative invoicing. However, although it did mention the “hearsay” issue in its Memorandum, it is unclear to what extent if any “hearsay” was raised by CIPPIC during the oral hearing before Prothonotary Aalto. It is not even mentioned by CIPPIC, at least according to the “unofficial” transcript of the oral argument on CIPPIC’s website. However, I have no way of knowing how complete or accurate that transcript may be and there are several references in it to the microphone being off for various periods of time. Ironically, hearsay was briefly mentioned by Voltage’s lawyer according to this unofficial transcript.

In any event, Prothonotary Aalto’s learned and lengthy decision following CIPPIC’s intervention and TekSavvy’s “no position” appearance does not mention the word “hearsay”. The rule against hearsay evidence (i.e. where the witness has personal knowledge and relies on statements from others) might have been Voltage’s potential “Achilles Heel”, but nobody seemed interested in going for that kind of victory. Arguably, if a victory is just, it should be taken where it can be found.

TekSavvy clearly went to great lengths, including extensive cross-examination, to pursue its alleged entitlement to “reasonable costs” in the amount of $346,480.68. Arguably, for much less expense, it might have instead stopped the arguably deficient and hearsay-based Voltage application from going forward at all. And as the Court pointed out, as noted above, TekSavvy would have been in a better position to recover costs.

It’s very difficult to predict what will happen now. Voltage may have already invested a lot of money on this case, unless there is a contingency arrangement with its consultants and/or its counsel – which would hardly be surprising. The small 6% fractional recovery by TekSavvy of its claim for costs is no doubt a victory for Voltage, but the costs of proceeding any further may still be very high. This case is still under Court supervision – and the Court has strongly indicated in the original decision from Prothonotary Aalto that it won’t allow the names and addresses of TekSavvy’s customers to be used simply as a database for uncontrolled speculative invoicing. Indeed, the Court must approve any proposed demand letter to be sent by Voltage to subscribers and is clearly contemplating that any actions commenced must be “separate” actions to be case managed by the Court. But will TekSavvy and/or CIPPIC step up to the plate to follow through on the possibly complicated and time-consuming future steps? If not, are TekSavvy’s customers going to be on their own and out there all alone?

According to an article published on April 2, 2015, it seems that Voltage’s lawyer now has a theory that he can sue for actual damages that will be greater than the statutory damages limit of $5,000 in cases of non-commercial infringement. The article is not entirely clear on what this theory is based but this is what it says:

Zibarras explained that plaintiffs in piracy cases can opt for statutory damages or actual damages. The former are awarded automatically once it’s been proven in court the defendant actually did download the movie. The latter, actual damages, take into account how much money the production company may have lost due to the downloading and subsequent distribution.

However, assuming that Mr. Zibarras’ theory is being stated accurately, that is just not the way things work. Statutory damages for non-commercial infringement (if proven) could be as much as $5,000 but also as little as $100. It’s up to the Judge. True, a plaintiff need not elect statutory damages and can go for “actual damages”. However, it’s a real stretch and “extremely far-fetched”, as I was quoted in the article, to suggest that a typical “ non-commercial” Bittorent user could be liable for any losses supposedly resulting from subsequent distribution via a Bittorent "swarm" of hosts “that upload to/download from each other simultaneously”, if that is indeed Voltage’s current theory.

To use such theory to ratchet up “actual damages” for downloading one movie (which might have cost $10 or so from iTunes or Amazon and from which Voltage would receive even less) to actual damages of more than $5,000 is “extremely far-fetched” indeed from every factual and legal standpoint, and that’s an understatement. Clearly, there would be immense if not insurmountable difficulty in proving how many,  if any, actual “lost sales” were the results of a particular customer’s individual infringement (if proven) by downloading and what damages, if any can be proven. Clearly too, a typical downloader has no “profits” for which to account.

If I understand this theory correctly, it is rather reminiscent of and perhaps even more “far-fetched” than Catherine Leuthold’s extremely longshot and so far very unsuccessful attempt to parlay a $19,200 claim into a $22,000,000 claim by trying to hold the CBC liable for separate acts of infringements for transmissions from each of the CBC’s 800 or so participating affiliated stations and Broadcasting Distribution Undertakings [BDUs].  An application for leave to appal her case is pending in the  Supreme Court of Canada and the result is expected shortly. It would be surprising if leave to appeal were to be granted.

It will also be very interesting indeed to see what happens with respect to Voltage’s presumptive obligation as a non-resident of Canada to post “security for costs” pursuant to the Federal Court Rules, and who – if anyone – will raise that issue and when. If Voltage gets around to actually suing anyone and doing so in separate lawsuits,  which is the Court’s clear expectation, that may be the first thing that knowledgeable counsel would address. And in this case, the security for costs motion may prove to be anything but routine.

If Voltage’s strategy is to avoid actual litigation, it may find itself in some trouble with the Court – because Prothonotary Aalto at para. 40 of his reasons  and the Federal Court of Appeal before him have made it very clear that the essential “bona fide” threshold requirement for disclosure means “that they really do intend to bring an action for infringement of copyright based upon the information they obtain”.

In one sense at least, the fact that the hearsay issue was not even mentioned in the proceedings to date is good news. This means that, in the future, another ISP may well challenge a disclosure motion the way that Shaw and Telus did in BMG, if the evidence is based upon hearsay or is otherwise inadequate. Indeed, another Canadian indie ISP, Distributel recently stood up to a plaintiff successfully, as I have pointed out, and stopped the disclosure motion even before it went forward.

So, we still have an uncertain future with respect to trolling and speculative invoicing in Canada. But one thing is certain – which is that door is now appears to be a little bit more open than it was before TekSavvy took the position that it would take “no position”.

And we also now have a potentially “perfect storm” about to hit Canada in the form of Bill S-4, which if enacted, could effectively take away the need for court approval of a disclosure motion. I wrote about this at length almost a year ago, and the timing and other coincidences with the Voltage case, TekSavvy’s “no position” response to it, and the coming into force, without regulations, of the problematic notice and notice regime. It’s a perfect storm of immense magnitude for those who care about privacy. All of this may also be a perfectly appealing opportunity for those entities who wish to engage in speculative invoicing and trolling, and lawyers who may wish to engage in pursuing this type of activity. And it may not even be too cynical a stretch to think that some ISPs in this new regime could be tempted to monetize the private information they have concerning their customers’ potentially infringing activities, along with their names and contact information – all without the bother of worrying about a court order.

But in the meantime and unless there’s a successful appeal by TekSavvy’s concerning its alleged entitlement to full indemnity costs, including legal fees, for a total of $346,480.68 for "for the costs it says it incurred as a result of Voltage’s motion" and for taking “no position” on the motion, TekSavvy’s “no position” position  would have been  “Nice work if you can get it”.  However, up until now TekSavvy didn’t get it and about 2,000 or so of its subscribers could soon be getting into a lot of trouble by being thrown into an uncertain but almost certainly unsettling settlement demand process.

HPK 

A Cautionary Tale of Costly Copyright Litigation Consequences: How to Win a Little and Lose a Lot

I blogged a few months ago about a case in which a former New Yorker named Catherine Leuthold sued the CBC for copyright infringement over the “honest mistake” (as the Court called it) of the unauthorized reuse of 18 seconds worth of a few of her still photographs in a documentary about 9/11. She tried to get $21,554,954.25 plus a portion of the CBC’s revenues. This astounding sum was based upon a theory, inasmuch as I can understand it, that each of the CBC’s 800 or so participating affiliated stations and Broadcasting Distribution Undertakings [BDUs] gave rise to a separate act of infringement. Not surprisingly, the Court did not agree. She was awarded $19,200 (six times $3,200) on the basis as found by the Court that “Miss Leuthold could have negotiated a higher license fee than the initial $2,500.00 in view of the repeated usage.”

This was not a case of “theft” or “piracy”. It was apparently nothing more than six inadvertent reuses beyond the original licensed use. She recovered less than 1/1,000 of what she sought. Her initial license fee for one use was $2,500.

As I said shortly after the decision:

…an American photographer named Catherine Leuthold sought $21,554,954.25 from the CBC and one of its employees personally for the mistaken re-uses of a few of her stills from 9/11.

At the end of the day, the Court quite predictably rejected her frankly astonishing suggestion that each transmission from each of the CBC’s hundreds of “distribution undertakings” warranted separate claims for damages, and awarded $3,200 for each of six unauthorized broadcasts, to which the CBC had admitted – i.e. $19,200. Even this amount was arguably generous under the circumstances and given the evidence.

The Court reduced Ms. Leuthold’s claim of $92,998 for her alleged entitlement to a share of Newsworld’s revenue to $168.74.

I also said:

The plaintiff was awarded about 0.0009 or less than one thousandth of what she was seeking. And she has yet to learn what the costs order will be. Her counsel apparently acknowledges … that costs could be awarded against her.

By seeking so much and recovering so little (and there were other unsuccessful claims for relief), the Plaintiff  was at very great risk for costs, if the CBC had availed itself of the benefit of the Federal Courts Rules by offering a timely and strategic settlement offer – which it turns out was exactly what happened. The case lasted for seven years and there was a six day trial and a very lengthy docket of motions, etc.

The costs issue has now come home to roost. In an order and reasons for order from Justice Scott dated October 29, 2012, the Court has predictably ruled under the Federal Courts Rules that Ms. Leuthold must pay CBC double the costs it would otherwise be entitled from August 9th, 2005. That was the date that the CBC served an offer to settle to the Plaintiff for an amount of USD $37 500 USD plus interest, which Ms. Leuthold rejected. The offer also included the costs of the action up to the date of the offer on a party and party basis.

Ms. Leuthold made some headway on this costs matter in a few respects. Most notably, the Court also allowed for a deduction on account of the “vexatious conduct of the defendant s during the discovery of [individual] defendant Jerry McIntosh”. But, but none of this is very significant in light of the foregoing ruling re double cost liability. The Court also added that she must pay for:

(a) the fees and disbursements of the experts heard at the hearing;

(b) all disbursements, including travel expenses for witnesses, photocopy fees, online research fees, transcript fees for examinations for discovery and the hearing, long distance fees, fax fees, postage and courier fees and other administrative fees;

(c) interest on fees and disbursements since June 14, 2012.

It goes without saying that she is also responsible for whatever she is obligated to pay to her own lawyer.

The Court notes that Ms. Leuthold’s taxable income in 2006 was $20,661 USD. The actual amount of costs assessed for the trial and proceedings leading up to it, which will then be doubled, has not yet been determined. However, it is safe to predict that it could be many, many times Ms. Leuthold’s taxable income for 2006.

An interesting aspect of all of this is that Ms. Leuthold reportedly lived in New York on 9/11 and is now reported to be living in Maine. Security for costs is normal when a plaintiff is ordinarily resident outside of Canada. A plaintiff can avoid such an order if impecuniosity can be demonstrated and the Court is of the opinion that the case has merit. Curiously, the CBC - which is subsidized by taxpayers to the tune of more than $1 billion per year - did not ask the Court for an order for security of costs. Interestingly, Ms. Leuthold also has another action pending in the Federal Court against CABLE TV CAMROSE INC. ET AL that has been stayed pending the outcome of the CBC action.

The security for costs mechanism exists for the obvious reason that it can become much more difficult for a Defendant that has been awarded costs to collect costs from a Plaintiff outside of Canada, even if the Plaintiff has the means to pay such costs. The prospect of an order for security for costs can sometimes serve as a very useful reality check for foreign plaintiffs who may not have a strong case and/or do not fully understand the Canadian litigation system. I have used it elsewhere to precisely such effect.

Ms. Leuthold is certainly persistent and determined. She is pursuing her appeal of the substantive decision. The appeal book consists of ten volumes. This will be a costly appeal. It remains to be seen if she will also try to appeal the costs award. Depending on the outcome of all of this, she potentially may be on the hook for a great deal more costs.

Unless there is a surprise ending, it may turn out that Ms. Leutholds’ costs in this case could easily run well into at least six figures, all in order to recover a little over $19,000 when she had been offered $37,500.

While this saga is clearly not yet over, it’s safe to say once again that copyright plaintiffs may wish to consider – as I’ve often said – the old adage of “be careful what you wish for”.

HPK