Opinion ID: 73870
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Authority to Modify

Text: 5 In its entirety, the new paragraph in the injunction reads: Defendant[s] ... are hereby permanently enjoined from: Advertising, representing or holding out to the public that Defendants possess an Underwriter's Laboratory fire rating ... unless and until such time as Defendants have submitted independent fire testing, independently tested load tables and independently calculated section properties information on its CONDEC product, and Underwriter's Laboratory expressly grants Defendants a fire rating ... based upon information other than that unlawfully copied from EPIC's EPICORE Concept 1 catalog. Upon appellate review, [m]otions for relief from a final judgment are addressed to the sound discretion of the district court, guided of course by accepted legal principles. Hand v. United States, 441 F.2d 529, 531 (5th Cir.1971).6 In this case, those legal principles were set out long ago in United States v. United Shoe Machinery Corp., 391 U.S. 244, 88 S.Ct. 1496, 20 L.Ed.2d 562 (1968) and its progeny. In United Shoe, the United States as plaintiff sought to modify a ten-year-old consent decree and injunction in an antitrust case, arguing that the divestiture goals of the order could only be achieved through further court action. United Shoe, 391 U.S. at 247, 88 S.Ct. at 1499. The Supreme Court held the district court had the power to grant the relief requested if the Government showed the decree had failed to accomplish the results it was designed to achieve. United Shoe, 391 U.S. at 251-52, 88 S.Ct. at 1500-01. The Court distinguished its prior decision in United States v. Swift & Co., 286 U.S. 106, 52 S.Ct. 460, 76 L.Ed. 999 (1932), in which the Court set a higher standard for modification of a decree or injunction when defendants sought relief not to achieve the purposes of the provisions of the decree, but to escape their impact. United Shoe, 391 U.S. at 249, 88 S.Ct. at 1500 (emphasis added). This Circuit has followed the rule of United Shoe when a plaintiff seeks to modify a decree or injunction designed to protect plaintiff's interests. In Exxon Corp. v. Texas Motor Exchange of Houston, Inc., 628 F.2d 500 (5th Cir.1980), the Texas Motor Exchange had been barred by permanent injunction from using the trademark TEXXON. The company began instead to use the names Texon and Tex-On, and Exxon moved to modify the permanent injunction to prohibit the use of those names as well. The Court found that [t]he holding in United Shoe Machinery indicates that an injunction may be modified to impose more stringent requirements on the defendant when 'the original purposes of the injunction are not being fulfilled in any material respect.'  Exxon, 628 F.2d at 503 (citation omitted). The Court looked at the original purpose of the permanent injunction and concluded that if the plaintiff could establish the new circumstance infringed on that purpose, then the injunction should be modified. Exxon, 628 F.2d at 504; see also Sizzler 6 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir.1981) (en banc), this Court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to close of business on September 30, 1981. Family Steak Houses v. Western Sizzlin Steak House, Inc., 793 F.2d 1529, 1539 (11th Cir.1986) (approving of and applying Exxon 's interpretation of United Shoe to uphold district court's alteration of a permanent injunction). In this case, the trial court was within its discretion in concluding that this Court's mandate effected a change in circumstances so that modification was required. The parties and the trial court agreed that the purpose of the original injunction was to prevent Condec from infringing on Epic's copyrights. Prior to the Court's decision in Epic Metals I, there was no need to enjoin advertisement of the UL rating because Condec was not allowed to sell the product at all. Once this Court's decision opened the door for Condec to sell its product again, the trial court acted within its discretion to determine that modification was necessary to prevent Condec from infringing on Epic's copyrights. Absent modification, Condec would reap an unexpected and unintended windfall by using a UL rating obtained through the copyright violation. Condec argues the injunction is duplicative of the statutory damages awarded. But in copyright the two remedies are not mutually exclusive. See, e.g., Montgomery v. Noga, 168 F.3d 1282, 1304-05 (11th Cir.1999) (looking at both statutory damages award and injunctive relief as bases for concluding that plaintiff prevailed for attorney's fees purposes); Twentieth Century Music Corp. v. Frith, 645 F.2d 6, 7 (5th Cir. Unit B May 1981) (holding defendants have no right to jury trial in copyright action where plaintiffs seek only statutory damages and injunctive relief); see also 4 Nimmer on Copyright § 14.06[B] (the prevailing plaintiff in a copyright infringement action may obtain, in addition to a monetary recovery, a permanent injunction). The trial court was well within its discretion in awarding both statutory damages and injunctive relief.7