LOS ANGELES (Legal Newsline) – A California appellate court has reversed a lower court's order that denied an actor's motion for attorneys fees in a legal battle with a health and nutrition company.
The Court of Appeal of the State of California, 2nd Appellate Division on Nov. 2 reversed the Los Angeles County Superior Court's ruling denying reimbursement of Jason Olive’s legal fees in a case against General Nutrition Centers, but otherwise affirmed the judgment in favor of Olive.
The ruling states a Los Angeles County Superior Court jury returned a verdict that awarded Olive $213,000 in actual damages related to GNC's improper use of his image and $910,000 in emotional distress damages.
Although GNC did acknowledge that it continued to use Olive’s picture in its ads after the contract with the actor ran out, the appeals court said the company disagreed with the amount of damages awarded to Olive.
In addition, both GNC and Olive took issue with the trial court’s denial of payment of their attorney’s fees and costs.
According to the appeals court opinion, Olive argued in his appeal that “the court erred by (1) failing to provide his proposed special jury instruction concerning the burden of proof…(2) excluding his expert witnesses who would have testified about the amount of GNC’s profits from the unauthorized use of his likeness and (3) determining he was not the prevailing party for purposes of awarding statutory attorney fees.”
Meanwhile, the appeals court said GNC also claimed that it “should have been deemed to be the prevailing party” by the Superior Court.
The appeals court sided with Olive in the dispute over which party should be deemed the winning party in connection with the lower’s court’s ruling.
“We conclude the trial court abused its discretion in its determination that Olive was not the prevailing party; accordingly, we reverse the order denying Olive’s motion for attorney fees,” according to the appeals court ruling, which was written by Superior Court Judge Gary Micon after he was assigned to the case by the appeals court’s chief justice.
The case was sent back to the Superior Court for a decision on the amount of costs and fees to be awarded.