[DO NOT PUBLISH]

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Eleventh Circuit

____________________

No. 23-12051

Non-Argument Calendar

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AFFORDABLE AERIAL PHOTOGRAPHY, INC, 

Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

JORIS C. REYES,

Defendant,

WC REALTY GROUP. INC., 

d.b.a. Century 21 WC Realty,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

D.C. Docket No. 9:22-cv-81256-DMM

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Before JILL PRYOR, BRANCH, and ABUDU, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:

In this appeal, we address the district court’s denial of a motion for prevailing-party attorneys’ fees under the Copyright Act, 

17 U.S.C. § 505. We find no reversible error, so we affirm.

I. FACTUAL BACKGROUND & PROCEDURAL HISTORY

In August 2022, Affordable Aerial Photography, Inc. 

(“AAP”), sued WC Realty Group, Inc. (“WC Realty”) and Joris 

Reyes alleging that Reyes had engaged in copyright infringement 

and that WC Realty had vicariously engaged in the same. In October, AAP dismissed its claims against Reyes and filed an amended 

complaint only against WC Realty. Three days after the amended 

complaint was filed, WC Realty moved to dismiss under Fed. R. 

Civ. P. 12(b)(6). Four days after the motion to dismiss was filed, 

AAP filed a notice of voluntary dismissal with prejudice under Fed. 

R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i).1

WC Realty later moved for attorneys’ fees under Section 505, which provides that a “court in its discretion may allow 

the recovery of full costs by or against any party” and “may award 

a reasonable attorney’s fee to the prevailing party as part of the 

1 The district court entered an order closing the case that noted that the case 

had been voluntarily dismissed under Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i). Because 

WC Realty had not filed an answer or motion for summary judgment, AAP’s 

notice of dismissal was, in fact, self-executing. See Absolute Activist Value Master 

Fund Ltd. v. Devine, 998 F.3d 1258, 1264-65 (11th Cir. 2021). 

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23-12051 Opinion of the Court 3

costs.” 17 U.S.C. § 505. WC Realty sought “$37,790.00 in 

fees . . . to be supplemented based on” further proceedings. AAP 

opposed WC Realty’s motion. 

The district court denied WC Realty’s motion. After reviewing the record, it explained that the case had ended with the 

filing of a voluntary dismissal with prejudice less than two months 

after suit was brought and days after a motion to dismiss had been 

filed. It also observed that it had made “no determination as to the 

validity of” AAP’s claims and that “[t]he fee litigation ha[d] surpassed, both in tone and expenditure of resources, the effort spent 

prior to dismissal.” WC Realty moved for reconsideration, but the 

district court denied that motion as well, reiterating that “[v]iewing 

all the circumstances of the case, [and] in light of the Copyright 

Act’s essential goals” it saw “no reason to award fees . . . .” 

WC Realty appeals. It argues that the district court applied 

an incorrect legal standard; failed to follow proper procedures; 

erred in concluding that its request for fees was contrary to the 

Copyright Act’s purposes; and failed to adequately explain its decision. 

II. STANDARDS OF REVIEW

We review de novo whether a party is a prevailing party. 

Royal Palm Props., LLC v. Pink Palm Props., LLC, 38 F.4th 1372, 1375 

(11th Cir. 2022). We review the decision to grant or deny a motion 

for fees to a prevailing party for an abuse of discretion. MiTek Holdings, Inc. v. Arce Eng’g Co., 198 F.3d 840, 842 (11th Cir. 1999). “If the 

district court weighed the proper factors, then ‘we will not 

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question the court’s decision to grant or deny fees absent an abuse 

of that discretion.’” Id. (quoting Montgomery v. Noga, 168 F.3d 1282, 

1303 (11th Cir. 1999)). “[T]he abuse of discretion standard allows 

‘a range of choice for the district court, so long as that choice does 

not constitute a clear error of judgment.’” Rasbury v. IRS (In re Rasbury), 24 F.3d 159, 168 (11th Cir. 1994) (quoting United States v. 

Kelly, 888 F.2d 732, 745 (11th Cir. 1989)). 

III. DISCUSSION

The term “prevailing party” is a term of art. “The ‘touchstone of the prevailing party inquiry’” is whether there has been a

“material alteration of the legal relationship of the parties” that has 

been “marked by judicial imprimatur.” Affordable Aerial Photography, 

Inc. v. Prop. Matters USA, LLC, 108 F.4th 1358, 1362 (11th Cir.), pet. 

for reh’g filed (Aug. 20, 2024) (first quoting Tex. State Tchrs. Ass’n v. 

Garland Indep. Sch. Dist., 489 U.S. 782, 792-93 (1989); and then quoting CRST Van Expedited, Inc. v. E.E.O.C., 578 U.S. 419, 422 (2016)). 

In other words, to obtain prevailing party status, a “court itself 

must act to reject or rebuff the plaintiff’s claims.” Id. at 1363; see

also id. at 1365 (“[S]ome judicial action rejecting or rebuffing a 

plaintiff’s claim is necessary to endow a defendant with prevailingparty status . . . .”); Royal Palm Props., 38 F.4th at 1376 (explaining

that a prevailing party “must be awarded some relief on the merits 

of its claim by the court” (emphasis added)).

As we noted above, AAP’s action against WC Realty was 

dismissed without court involvement—automatically—when AAP

filed its notice of voluntary dismissal under Fed. R. Civ. P. 

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41(a)(1)(A)(i). See Absolute Activist, 998 F.3d at 1265 (“[A] plaintiff’s 

voluntary dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) is effective immediately upon filing, and thus no further court order is necessary to 

effectuate the dismissal.” (alteration adopted, internal quotations 

and citation omitted)); see also Affordable Aerial, 108 F.4th at 1364-65 

& n.5 (explaining that a dismissal under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) “takes 

effect without a court order” (internal quotation omitted)). We 

recently concluded, in Affordable Aerial, that this feature of Rule 

41(a)(1)(A)(i)—that it produces dismissal without the district court 

entering any order—made it so that a plaintiff’s dismissal without

prejudice under Rule 41(a)(1)(A)(i) did not entitle a defendant to 

prevailing-party status and fees under the Copyright Act. See Affordable Aerial, 108 F.4th at 1364-65. In concluding as much, we explained that, in Mathews v. Crosby, 480 F.3d 1265, 1276 (11th Cir. 

2007), we concluded that “a defendant can be considered the prevailing party after a voluntary dismissal with prejudice,” id., but

that the voluntary dismissal in Mathews had “‘clearly rebuffed with 

the court’s imprimatur’ the plaintiff’s claims” against the defendants

“and prevented the plaintiff from re-litigating those same claims in 

the future,” id. at 1364 n.6 (quoting Beach Blitz Co. v. City of Miami 

Beach, 13 F.4th 1289, 1301 (11th Cir. 2021)). In Affordable Aerial, on 

the other hand, even if the plaintiff’s voluntary dismissal without 

prejudice might bar—because of the statute of limitations—later 

efforts by the plaintiff to successfully litigate its claim, that “[wa]s 

not owed to any action of the district court.” Id. at 1365.

Here, the claims in AAP’s first amended complaint were not 

rejected or rebuffed by the district court, so the dismissal is more 

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like Affordable Aerial than Mathews. While Mathews instructs that 

some voluntary dismissals with prejudice can entitle a defendant to 

prevailing-party status, we have not held that they always entitle a 

defendant to prevailing-party status, and the facts here do not warrant such a conclusion. See Mathews, 480 F.3d at 1276-77.2 As the 

district court noted, AAP voluntarily dismissed its suit four days 

after WC Realty’s motion to dismiss was filed and before the court

had ruled on any substantive motion in the case. The record is silent on why AAP moved to dismiss its suit with prejudice, and it 

would not have needed the court’s permission to do so without 

prejudice. Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(1)(A)(i). Simply put, the facts of 

this case are “not the stuff of which [a defendant’s] legal victories 

are made.” Affordable Aerial, 108 F.4th at 1365 (alteration in original) (quoting Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760 (1987)). We therefore affirm the denial of fees under § 505 because WC Realty was 

not the prevailing party. See Fla. Wildlife Fed’n Inc. v. United States 

Army Corps of Eng’rs, 859 F.3d 1306, 1316 (11th Cir. 2017) (“We may 

affirm the district court’s ruling on any basis the record supports.”). 

Even if WC Realty were the prevailing party, we are unconvinced that the district court abused its discretion in concluding 

that fees were unwarranted given the circumstances of the case we 

2 We also explained in Affordable Aerial that, in Mathews, “it appears that the 

district court entered an order granting the plaintiff’s motions for voluntary 

dismissals under Rule 41(a)(2)”—further distinguishing that case from this one 

as well. Affordable Aerial, 108 F.4th at 1364 n.6; see also Fed. R. Civ. P. 41(a)(2) 

(providing for voluntary dismissal by court order “on terms that the court considers proper”). 

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have already discussed. See Rasbury, 24 F.3d at 168. The Copyright 

Act provides district courts with discretion to determine whether 

fees are warranted, 17 U.S.C. § 505, and the district court provided 

a well-reasoned and cogent explanation for its exercise of discretion

here: (i) AAP dismissed its case voluntarily with prejudice shortly 

after the motion to dismiss without any determination on the merits of its claims; and (ii) fees would not advance the purposes of the 

Copyright Act. We conclude that the district court “weighed the 

proper factors” and we do not discern an abuse of discretion. MiTek 

Holdings, 198 F.3d at 842.

IV. CONCLUSION

For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s well-reasoned orders. 

AFFIRMED.3

3 AAP moves to dismiss WC Realty’s appeal as frivolous. We DENY that motion. 

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