Source: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-azd-3_12-cv-08165/USCOURTS-azd-3_12-cv-08165-0/pdf.json

Nature of Suit Code: 820
Nature of Suit: Copyright
Cause of Action: 17:101 Copyright Infringement

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WO 

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 

FOR THE DISTRICT OF ARIZONA 

Lynnell Levingston, 

Plaintiff, 

v. 

Victoria L. Earle; the Law Office of 

Victoria L. Earle, LLC, an Arizona Limited 

Liability Company; Patricia V. Piburn and 

Raymon L. Piburn, husband and wife, 

Defendants.

No. CV-12-08165-PCT-JAT

ORDER 

 

 Pending before the Court are (1) Victoria L. Earle; the Law Office of Victoria L. 

Earle, LLC; and Patricia V. Piburn and Raymon L. Piburn’s (collectively, “Defendants”) 

Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 23); (2) Lynnell Levingston’s (the “Plaintiff”) Motion for Entry 

of Default (Doc. 27); (3) Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Compliance with Rule 16 (Doc. 

29); and (4) Plaintiff’s Motion for Sanctions (Doc. 24). 

I. BACKGROUND 

 In 2008, Plaintiff authored and published a book called The Road Memoir of 

Corruption and Abuse of Power (the “Book”). (Doc. 22 at 2). Plaintiff later registered 

the Book with the United State Copyright Office. Id. at 3. Plaintiff also posts writings to 

a self-hosted Internet Blog entitled Three Men Make a Tiger (the “Blog”). Id. at 2. 

 On August 24, 2009, Plaintiff commenced an action for copyright infringement of 

the Book against at least some of the Defendants in the district court. (Doc. 23-5 at 2). 

While the action was pending, Plaintiff filed a Chapter 7 petition in the United States 

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Bankruptcy Court, District of Arizona. Id. In the schedule submitted to the Bankruptcy 

Court dated December 7, 3009, Plaintiff listed the Book as an asset, but Plaintiff did not 

list (1) the copyright right infringement claims related to the Book, (2) the Blog, or (3) 

the copyright infringement claim related to the Blog. (Doc. 23-2). The district court 

ultimately dismissed the copyright infringement action because Plaintiff failed to 

substitute or join the bankruptcy trustee, or alternatively, Plaintiff failed to allege that the 

action was exempt from the bankruptcy estate or abandoned by the bankruptcy trustee. 

(Doc. 23-5 at 4). 

 On August 16, 2012, Plaintiff filed a Complaint (Doc. 1) with this Court, and on 

April 29, 2013, Plaintiff filed an Amended Complaint (Doc. 22). In the Amended 

Complaint, Plaintiff stated four claims for relief: (1) copyright infringement under 17 

U.S.C. § 501, (2) contributory infringement, (3) civil conspiracy to commit 

misappropriation, and (4) violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act under 17 

U.S.C. § 1201(a). On May 20, 2013, Defendants filed a Motion to Dismiss. (Doc. 23). 

Plaintiff responded to Defendants Motion to Dismiss in a First Opposition (Doc. 24) and 

a Second Opposition (Doc. 26). With the first Opposition, Plaintiff filed a Motion for 

Sanctions (Doc. 24) and a Motion for Out-of-Pocket Costs. After Defendants responded 

to the Amended Complaint, Plaintiff filed a Motion for Entry of Default (Doc. 27) and a 

Motion to Compel Compliance with the Rule 16 Conference (Doc. 29). 

II. ANALYSIS 

A. STANDING 

 Defendants move to dismiss Plaintiff’s Amended Complaint pursuant to Federal 

Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of subject matter jurisdiction because 

Defendants argue that Plaintiff does not have standing to bring the action. 

 Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1), a litigant may seek dismissal of 

an action for lack of standing because “Article III standing is a species of subject matter 

jurisdiction.” Cariajano v. Occidental Petroleum Corp., 643 F.3d 1216, 1227 (9th Cir. 

2011) (citation omitted). When a defendant raises a factual challenge under Rule 

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12(b)(1), the Court is not limited to the allegations in the pleadings. Roberts v. 

Corrothers, 812 F.2d 1173, 1177 (9th Cir. 1987). Therefore, the Court may view 

evidence outside the record, and no presumptive truthfulness is due to the complaint’s 

allegations that bear on the court’s subject matter jurisdiction. Augustine v. United 

States, 704 F.2d 1074, 1077 (9th Cir. 1983). To survive a defendant’s motion to dismiss 

the plaintiff has the burden of proving jurisdiction. Tosco v. Cmtys. for a Better Env’t, 

236 F.3d 495, 499 (9th Cir. 2000). 

 

 1. Copyright Infringement and Contributory Infringement Claims in the 

 Bankruptcy Estate 

 

 Plaintiff’s first cause of action is copyright infringement pursuant to 17 U.SC. § 

501. Within that claim, Plaintiff alleges that Defendants infringed the Book copyright 

and the Blog copyright when Defendants made copies of the Book and the Blog for 

purposes of litigation beginning in 2008 and continuing to 2012. In Plaintiff’s second 

cause of action, Plaintiff alleges that Defendant Patricia Piburn engaged in contributory 

infringement when she provided copies of the Book and the Blog to her attorney in 

October 2009. Defendants argue that Plaintiff lacks standing to bring this present action 

because Plaintiff filed a bankruptcy petition—with some property at issue not listed as 

assets—before the filing of this action. Therefore, because the bankruptcy trustee did not 

abandon the claims in this action, Plaintiff does not have standing to sue. To support 

their argument, Defendants attached Plaintiff’s bankruptcy schedule. Because 

Defendants raised a factual challenge to Plaintiff’s standing, the Court may consider the 

bankruptcy schedule and other exhibits attached to Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss. 

Although Plaintiff does not address many of the standing issues in the Oppositions, 

Plaintiff claims that the rights to the Book reverted to her in August 2012. Plaintiff 

supports her position with a self-serving affidavit.1

 (Doc. 26). 

 When Plaintiff filed her bankruptcy petition, she created a bankruptcy estate that 

 

1

 For purposes of the Motion to Dismiss, the Court assumes Plaintiff’s affidavit is 

true. However, if the Court later finds that Plaintiff has made false statements in the 

affidavit that she submitted, Defendants may seek sanctions against Plaintiff. 

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included the property that is the subject of this action. 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1), (7). 

Section 541 provides that all of the debtor’s assets, including causes of action, vest in the 

bankruptcy estate. United States v. Whiting Pools, Inc., 462 U.S. 198, 205 (1983) 

(Section “541(a)(1)’s scope is broad”). Once an asset becomes part of the bankruptcy 

estate, all debtor’s rights in the asset are extinguished unless the asset is abandoned 

pursuant to § 554. 11 U.S.C. § 554(a)–(c). At the close of the bankruptcy case, property 

of the estate that is not abandoned pursuant to § 554 and that is not administered in the 

bankruptcy proceedings remains the property of the estate. 11 U.S.C. § 554(d). Failure 

to list an interest on a bankruptcy schedule leaves that interest in the bankruptcy estate, 

and the debtor lacks standing to pursue it. Dunmore v. United States, 358 F.3d 1107, 

1112 (9th Cir. 2004). 

 Plaintiff lost rights in the assets that she failed to list on the bankruptcy schedule 

and thus does not have standing to pursue claims related to those assets. On August 24, 

2009, Plaintiff filed an action for copyright infringement of the Book. (Doc. 23-5). The 

district court eventually dismissed the action because Plaintiff failed to add the 

bankruptcy trustee or show that the trustee had abandoned the claim. Id. Therefore, 

Plaintiff knew of her interest in the copyright infringement claim well before she filed for 

bankruptcy in December 2009, and yet failed to list it on the bankruptcy schedule. In 

addition, Plaintiff entirely failed to list the Blog as an asset, including any claims related 

to that asset. As a result, the interests in the following assets remain in the bankruptcy 

estate and did not revert to her upon discharge of her debts: (1) the claims arising before 

December 2009, including the copyright infringement and contributory infringement 

claims; (2) the Blog; and (3) claims related to the Blog. Cusano v. Klein, 264 F.3d 936, 

946 (9th Cir. 2001). Because these interests are not Plaintiff’s property, she lacks 

standing to pursue them.2

 Therefore, the following claims are dismissed because Plaintiff 

 

2

 Alternatively, Plaintiff’s claims are barred by the statute of limitations. Section 507(b) of the Copyright Act provides a three-year statute of limitations. 17 U.S.C. § 507(b). Because Plaintiff filed this action on August 16, 2009, copyright infringement claims arising before that date are barred. 

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does not have standing: (1) copyright infringement of the Blog; (2) copyright 

infringement claims of the Book arising before August 2012; and (3) the contributory 

infringement.3

2. Plaintiff Does Not Have Standing to Bring a Claim under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 

 

 Plaintiff’s fourth cause of action is a violation of § 1201(a)(1)(A) of the Digital 

Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). Under this cause of action, Plaintiff alleges that 

Defendants submitted copies of the Blog to the superior court after Plaintiff had 

implemented security measures on the Blog. (Doc. 22 at 9). Plaintiff further alleges that 

the security measures prevent “copying, printing, and right-clicking,” and thus 

Defendants must have circumvented these measures. Id. Defendants argue that Plaintiff 

does not have standing to bring this claim because the Blog is part of the bankruptcy 

estate. 

 The DMCA contains provisions “directed at the circumvention of a copyright 

owner’s technological measures.” MDY Indus., LLC v. Blizzard Entm’t, Inc., 629 F.3d 

928, 942 (9th Cir. 2010) (interpreting 17 U.S.C § 1201(a)). Section 1201(a)(1)(A) is a 

prohibition against “circumventing a technological measure that effectively controls 

access to a work protected under [the Copyright Act],” and it grants copyright owners the 

right to enforce the prohibition. 17 U.S.C. § 1201(a)(1)(A); MDY Indus., 629 F.3d at 

944. Here, Plaintiff does not have standing to pursue a claim under the DMCA because it 

gives only copyright owners a right to enforce. Plaintiff failed to list the Blog on the 

bankruptcy schedule. Thus, Plaintiff does not own the rights to the Blog; the ownership 

of the copyright rests in the bankruptcy estate. As a result, the DMCA claim is 

dismissed. 

B. FAILURE TO STATE A CLAIM 

 Defendants also seek dismissal pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 

 

3

 Plaintiff’s affidavit states that the rights to the Book copyright reverted to her in August 2012, and thus Plaintiff has standing to pursue that claim. 

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12(b)(6) for failure to state a claim. To survive dismissal for failure to state a claim, the 

complaint must contain more than “labels and conclusions” or a “formulaic recitation of 

the elements of a cause of action”; it must contain factual allegations sufficient to “raise a 

right to relief above the speculative level.” Bell Atl. Corp. v. Twombly, 550 U.S. 544, 555 

(2007) (explaining that the purpose of Rule 8 is to “give the defendant fair notice of what 

the . . . claim is and the grounds upon which it rests”). 

 1. Defendants’ Use of the Copyrighted Book 

 It appears Plaintiff has failed to state a claim for copyright infringement in 2012 

because it appears Defendants’ use of the copyrighted Book constitutes “fair use”.4

 See

17 U.S.C. § 107. While Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss did not raise this issue, the Court 

raises the subject sua sponte. “The district court has the power to dismiss a complaint sua 

sponte for failure to state a claim . . . so long as the plaintiff is given notice and an 

opportunity to be heard.” Wachtler v. County of Herkimer, 35 F.3d 77, 82 (2d Cir. 1994). 

 The Amended Complaint alleges that in 2012 Defendants attached copies of the 

Book to a pleading. (Doc. 22 at 5). In this case, Defendants copied excerpts of the Book 

only for use in court proceedings against Plaintiff for harassment, not for enjoyment. 

(Doc. 23 at 8). Under these circumstances, Defendants did not commercially exploit 

Plaintiff’s copyrighted Book. Jartech, Inc v. Clancy, 666 F.2d 403, 406–07 (9th Cir. 

1982) (when parties use copyrighted excerpts in judicial proceedings, the copies are not 

commercially exploitive of the copyrighted work and do not have the same intrinsic use); 

see also Hustler Magazine, Inc. v. Moral Majority Inc., 796 F.2d 1148, 1155 (9th Cir. 

1986) (use that has no effect upon the market of the copyrighted work, or the value of the 

copyrighted work, does not need to prohibited to protect the author’s incentive to create). 

Defendants merely used the excerpts as evidence in a judicial proceeding to show 

Plaintiff’s conduct toward Defendants. As a result, it appears the use of the documents is 

 

4

 The 2012 claim under the copyright infringement cause of action is the only claim that Plaintiff has standing to pursue. However, this analysis applies to all of Plaintiff’s claims because all of the claims relate to use of copies of the Book and the Blog in judicial proceeding against Plaintiff for harassment. 

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“fair use” under 17 U.S.C. § 107 and not an infringement of Plaintiff’s copyright because 

“works are customarily reproduced in various types of judicial proceedings, including 

obscenity and defamation actions . . . and it seems inconceivable that any court would 

hold such reproduction to constitute infringement.” Religious Tech. Center v. 

Wollersheim, 971 F.3d 364, 367 (9th Cir. 1992) (holding that providing copies to expert 

witnesses for the purpose of preparing testimony in a state tort litigation fell under fair 

use) (citation omitted). Thus, Plaintiff has an opportunity to respond to the fair use 

defense, and if Plaintiff does not respond, the Plaintiff’s copyright infringement claim 

will be dismissed. 

2. Civil Conspiracy Requires an Underlying Tort 

 Plaintiff’s third claim for relief is state law civil conspiracy. Defendants argued 

that there is no underlying tort of copyright infringement, because Plaintiff does not have 

rights to the Book or the Blog. In the alternative, Defendants argue that the generic 

allegations, without factual support, fail to assert a claim for relief under Twombly. 

“[L]iabilty for civil conspiracy requires that two more individuals agree and thereupon 

accomplish an underlying tort which the alleged conspirators agreed to commit.” Wells 

Fargo Bank v. Arizona Laborers Local No. 395 Pension Trust Fund, 38 P.3d 12, 36 

(Ariz. 2002) (citation omitted). A plaintiff must allege specific facts that support the 

inference of such an agreement. S. Union Co. v. Sw. Gas Corp., 165 F. Supp. 2d 1010, 

1021 (D. Ariz. 2001). 

 The civil conspiracy cause of action fails because the Amended Complaint does 

not allege sufficient facts to support a plausible legal claim of civil conspiracy and there 

is no underlying tort. The Amended Complaint alleges that “Defendants submitted yet 

another pleading . . . with [the Book and the Blog] attached” and that a third party 

attempted to arrange a settlement deal. (Doc. 22 at 8) These allegations are insufficient 

to show an actual conspiratorial agreement. The Complaint is simply void of any clear 

evidence of a plan to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright.5

 Moreover, Defendants’ use likely 

 

5

 In addition, Exhibit 9, which Plaintiff alleges supports her claim, is not attached 

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constitutes fair use because Defendants attached copies of the Book to show Plaintiff’s 

conduct in a harassment action, and as a result, an underlying tort does not exist. The 

civil conspiracy claim is dismissed because it does not allege facts showing that the 

Defendants actually agreed to infringe Plaintiff’s copyright or that an underlying tort 

exists.6

 

III. CONCLUSION 

 In addition to the Motion to Dismiss, Defendants also moved for attorneys’ fees. 

Under 17 U.S.C. § 505, the Court has discretion to award attorneys’ fees to a prevailing 

party when doing so would further the purposes of the Copyright Act. Perfect 10, Inc. v. 

CCBill LLC, 488 F.3d 1102, 1120 (9th Cir. 2007). Because Plaintiff has an opportunity 

to respond to fair use, the Court may not award attorneys’ fees before Plaintiff’s 

opportunity to respond. Interscope Records v. Leadbetter, 312 Fed. Appx. 50 (9th Cir. 

2009) (a dismissal without prejudice does not constitute a material alteration in the 

litigants’ legal relationship, and thus a party does not have prevailing party status). 

However, if there is a dismissal with prejudice, Defendants may again move for 

attorneys’ fees. 

 Based on the foregoing, 

 IT IS ORDERED that Defendants’ Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 23) is granted in 

part; the motion remains pending, in part, subject to supplemental briefing. Defendants’ 

Motion for Attorney’s Fees (Doc. 23) is denied without prejudice. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff shall file a response to address only 

fair use as discussed in this Order within fourteen days of the date of this Order. 

 the Amended Complaint. In the district court, the amended complaint supersedes the original complaint. See Dowdy v. Raman, No. 1:08-cv-00058, 2008 WL 1901330, *3 

(E.D. Cal. 2008) (citing Forsyth v. Humana, Inc., 114 F.3d 1467, 1474 (9th Cir. 1997), 

overruled on other grounds by, Lacey v. Maricopa County, 693 F.3d 896 (9th Cir. 2012)). 

6

 Although Defendants did not move under preemption, Plaintiff’s state law civil 

conspiracy claim faces issues of preemption by the Federal Copyright Act. Grosso v. 

Miramax Film Corp., 383 F.3d 965, 968 (9th Cir. 2004) (“To survive preemption, the state cause of action must protect rights that are qualitatively different from the rights protected by copyright . . . .”). 

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Defendant may reply within seven days from when Plaintiff responds. If Plaintiff does 

not respond, the Motion to Dismiss will be deemed granted in full with prejudice, and the 

Clerk of the Court shall enter judgment consistent with this Order. 

IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Costs, Attorney’s Fees, 

Expense, Out-of-pocket Costs, and to Convert to a Motion for Summary Judgment (Doc. 

24) is denied. 

 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion for Entry of Default (Doc. 

27) is denied because Defendants responded to the Amended Complaint (Doc. 22) with a 

Motion to Dismiss (Doc. 23). 

 IT IS FURTHER ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motion to Compel Compliance 

with Rule 16 (Doc. 29) is denied because a Rule 16 conference has not been held. 

 IT IS FINALLY ORDERED that Plaintiff’s Motions for Sanctions (Docs. 24 and 

26) are denied because there are no grounds to impose sanctions. 

 Dated this 20th day of November, 2013. 

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