Opinion ID: 2812817
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: 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), No. 14-3099 3 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.taylorcomputersolutions.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 4 No. 14-3099 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’ sum- mary 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 No. 14-3099 5 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.