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Thursday, March 28, 2024

Email between blogger's attorney, Center for Individual Rights barred from dispute over legal fees

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MIAMI – The Center for Individual Rights (CIR) was recently granted part of its motion to prevent blogger Irina Chevaldina from introducing certain records at trial in which CIR alleges that Chevaldina still owes them for representing her in a copyright lawsuit over Chevaldina’s use of a photo in her blog.

In his Aug. 3 ruling, U.S. Magistrate Judge Edwin E. Torres of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida granted CIR's motion to preclude an email from 2015 that discussed settlements while denying CIR’s motions to preclude CIR’s financial records and other communications.

CIR represented Chevaldina in an 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals case, Katz v. Google, that alleged Chevaldina’s use of a photo of Raanan Katz in her blog infringed upon copyrights. CIR claims that Chevaldina breached her contract by not paying CIR the agreed upon retainer, while Chevaldina claims she does not owe CIR any fees.  


Judge Edwin E. Torres wrote the order.

CIR filed a motion in limine to prevent Chevaldina from entering evidence into the court record for CIR’s donation letters, tax returns and financial statements and also a motion to preclude a 2015 email between Chevaldina’s former attorney and CIR.

Chevaldina claims that the documents prove that CIR received outside funding when it represented Chevaldina in the appeals court and that the 2015 email was not a settlement communication and can’t be precluded, adding that CIR has not proved there is a dispute about the fees she owes

CIR claimed that because previous court rulings denied Chevaldina’s motion to compel CIR to produce their financial records, they are irrelevant and should be excluded at trial. 

Torres' order recognized that the court previously denied Chevaldina’s motion to compel CIR to produce the financial records because they found that even if discovery proved that CIR received outside funding for the costs of representing Chevaldina, it wouldn’t change her contract with CIR and the agreement to pay at the end of her prior case. Torres stated that at this stage, however, Chevaldina could introduce the financial documents “for the limited purpose of impeachment,”  which is at the discretion of the court to admit and denied CIR’s motion.

Torres stated that the 2015 email between CIR's general counsel, Michael Rosman, and Adam Schacter, who represented Chevaldina in state court, “suggests that CIR and Mr. Schacter (as Chevaldina’s state court counsel) were open to the possibility of settling Chevaldina’s fee award in the 11th Circuit as well as her fee liability in state court,” noting that there is “no question that there is a dispute on the amount of fees owed under the retainer agreement.”  Torres furthered said that “though the settlement negotiation occurred in relation to another case, it still constitutes the same claim as the one in this case because it relates to the amount of fees that plaintiff is entitled to.”

The order denied CIR’s motion to preclude all remaining settlement communications from evidence, stating, “Without any clarity on what other communications plaintiff seeks to preclude, it would be premature to conclude that all settlement communications are per se barred under Rule 408 without any specifics on what these communications may be.” CIR was granted leave to renew the issue at trial.

U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida case number 17-20905-Civ-KING/TORRES

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