Bell v. Taylor

• Decision Date: 29 June 2015
• Docket Number: No. 14–3099.,14–3099.
• Citation: 115 U.S.P.Q.2d 1175,791 F.3d 745
• Parties: Richard BELL, Plaintiff–Appellant, v. Cameron TAYLOR, et al., Defendants–Appellees.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

791 F.3d 745

115 U.S.P.Q.2d 1175

Richard BELL, Plaintiff–Appellant

v.Cameron TAYLOR, et al., Defendants–Appellees.

No. 14–3099.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

Argued April 1, 2015.

Decided June 29, 2015.

Richard N. Bell, McCordsville, IN, pro se.

John W. Nelson, Attorney, Law Office of John Nelson, Carmel, IN, for Defendant–Appellee.

Before WOOD, Chief Judge, FLAUM, Circuit Judge, and KENNELLY, District Judge.^*

Opinion

FLAUM, Circuit Judge.

Richard Bell sued various defendants for copyright infringement, accusing each of impermissibly displaying a photo that he owns on web-sites promoting their respective businesses. Bell's complaint sought both damages and an injunction prohibiting future use of the photo. The defendants moved for summary judgment on the damages issue, arguing that Bell cannot demonstrate how they caused him financial harm and, thus, that he is not entitled to monetary recovery. The district court granted the motion, and Bell appealed. In addition to the summary judgment ruling, Bell contests the district court's denial of two motions to compel and a motion seeking leave to file a fourth amended complaint.

We have no jurisdiction to decide these issues. Although the court purported to issue a “final judgment” after ruling on the defendants' summary judgment motion, it did so in error; the issue of injunctive relief was never adjudicated. Because Bell's copyright claim was not entirely disposed of by the district court's summary judgment ruling, the judgment—by definition—was not final. Accordingly, an appeal in this case is premature until the district court resolves Bell's outstanding claims for injunctive relief.

I. Background

Richard Bell, a lawyer and photographer, alleges that three small Indianapolis business owners (and the small businesses of two of those three defendants), violated federal copyright laws (and an Indiana theft statute) by publishing on the internet a photo that he took of the Indianapolis skyline without his authorization. Defendant Fred O'Brien has an insurance business (co-defendant Insurance Concepts) and, for a few weeks in 2011, operated a website (www. insuranceconceptsfinancial.com), where he allegedly displayed the photo. Defendant Cameron Taylor operates a computer business (co-defendant Taylor Computer Solutions), which he advertises on the web at www.taylorcompute rsolutions.com. Bell alleges that he used the photo between January 2009 and April 14, 2011. Defendant Shanna Cheatham is a real estate agent, who marketed her services at www.shannasells.com. Bell alleges that her site displayed his photo between June 2008 and June 15, 2011. Bell attached his photo to the (operative) third amended complaint, which sought both monetary damages and injunctive relief.

In August 2013, the district court set a deadline for filing motions for leave to amend the pleadings. Nevertheless, Bell sought to amend his complaint (for a fourth time) nearly eight months after the cut-off. The impetus for Bell's motion to amend was his realization that defendant Taylor had not actually used the photo at issue (a photo of Indianapolis's skyline during the daytime); rather, Taylor's website displayed a different photo belonging to Bell—one depicting Indianapolis's skyline at night. Although motions for leave to amend are to be granted liberally, the district court denied Bell's motion, citing undue delay and his own carelessness as grounds for the ruling.

On May 2, 2014, the defendants filed a motion for summary judgment. In it, they argued that defendant Taylor was entitled to summary judgment, because she never displayed the photo about which Bell complained. And, as to all defendants, they argued that Bell was not entitled to damages; “even in the event [Bell] is able to establish ownership of the photo in question ... he is not entitled to economic damages based upon applicable law and the facts of this case,” they contended. The defendants moved to dismiss the state law claim on preemption grounds.

The district court concluded that, although Bell had established ownership of the photo, he was not entitled to damages. In the court's view, Bell failed to demonstrate that the defendants profited from their misuse of his photo. And, though the court agreed that Bell was entitled to damages equal to the photo's fair market value, it deemed his affidavit representing its value ($200) as insufficient proof. It also agreed that Bell's state claims were preempted, and so it granted the defendants' summary judgment motion in full.

In doing so, the court also denied an outstanding motion to compel that Bell had filed earlier in the case. In that motion, Bell sought spreadsheets that defendant Cheatham's expert had used in the creation of a table she made displaying the web traffic that Cheatham's site received before, during, and after the period in which she displayed Bell's photo. Earlier in the proceedings, the district court also had denied Bell's request for tax returns from each defendant for every year from 2000 to 2011, which Bell hoped would show that the defendants' profits increased during the periods in which their websites displayed Bell's photo.

On the day the court ruled on the defendants' summary judgment motion, it also entered what was labeled “Final Judgment,” purporting to dispose of the case in the defendants' favor. Bell then appealed, arguing that the district court made a multitude of errors. First, he charges the district judge with improperly denying his two motions to compel, unfairly impeding his ability to prove an entitlement to monetary damages. Second, Bell contends that, even setting aside the court's discovery ruling, it erroneously granted summary judgment in favor of the defendants on the damages issue. Third, he claims that the district court improperly denied his motion for leave to amend his complaint for the fourth time in order to correct his photo identification error with respect to Taylor. Finally, Bell asserts that the court inappropriately entered final judgment in this case, as the defendants' summary judgment motion (and the court's ruling on it) only pertained to Bell's claim to monetary relief; Bell's request for an injunction was never addressed.

II. Discussion

We begin, and end, with the issue of appellate jurisdiction, because—as it turns out—we have none here. Having reviewed the defendants' summary judgment motion and the district court's opinion, Bell is correct: the court did not resolve his claims for injunctive relief. As such, the district court's ruling was not final, and Bell's appeal is premature.

In their motion for summary judgment, the defendants made clear that they were moving for judgment only as to the issue of damages. Indeed, they captioned their brief in support of their summary judgment motion as a “Motion for Partial Summary Judgment as to Damages and Preemption.” And the district court acknowledged as much in its opinion, noting that the “Defendants ... rest their motion for summary judgment on the premise that Mr. Bell cannot establish actual damages or indirect profits.” Bell v. Taylor, No. 13–cv–798, 2014 WL 4250110, at *4 (S.D.Ind. Aug. 26, 2014). For that reason, the district court's opinion did not decide whether Bell's claims warrant injunctive relief. See id....