Background
Harvest Aid, LLC sued Wax Works, Inc. and Steven Paul (along with related entities) in the Central District of California for copyright infringement, alleging that the defendants distributed DVDs of a Christian film without authorization. After a jury trial, the defendants were found liable for willful copyright infringement.
Following the verdict, Wax Works moved for a new trial. The district court denied that motion. Critically, the court did not reach the substance of the motion. Instead, it denied the motion on procedural grounds, concluding that Wax Works had failed to comply with Central District of California Local Rule 7-3, which requires the parties to meet and confer about the substance of a motion at least seven days before it is filed.
Wax Works appealed to the Ninth Circuit, arguing that it had attempted in good faith to satisfy the meet-and-confer requirement and that opposing counsel had been unresponsive or had refused to engage on the substance. The appellate court consolidated three related appeals from the case for resolution.
The Court’s Holding
The Ninth Circuit, in a nonprecedential memorandum disposition, vacated the district court’s denial of the motion for new trial and remanded for further proceedings. The panel held that the district court had applied Local Rule 7-3 too rigidly. The judge had treated procedural noncompliance as an automatic bar without weighing the equities — namely, Wax Works’ documented good-faith attempts to confer and Harvest Aid’s “opportunistic refusals” to engage on the merits of the proposed motion.
The Ninth Circuit emphasized that local rules exist to facilitate efficient adjudication, not to provide a one-sided procedural shield. When one party tries in good faith to comply and the other party stonewalls, denying the motion outright on procedural grounds is an abuse of discretion. The district court was instructed on remand to consider the merits of Wax Works’ new trial motion.
Because the disposition was unpublished, it does not bind future panels. But it sends a clear signal about how Ninth Circuit district judges should handle Local Rule 7-3 disputes when the noncompliance is contested.
Key Takeaways
- A district court cannot reflexively deny a substantive motion solely for failure to satisfy Local Rule 7-3 when the moving party can document good-faith efforts to confer and the opposing party refused to engage.
- Litigants on the receiving end of a meet-and-confer request should respond on the substance — “opportunistic refusals” can come back to bite the responding party on appeal.
- Even after a willful copyright infringement verdict, defendants retain the right to a substantive ruling on a properly supported new trial motion. Procedural shortcuts to deny that motion are vulnerable on appeal.
- The decision is unpublished, so its persuasive weight is limited, but it reflects the panel’s view of how Local Rule 7-3 should operate in practice.
Why It Matters
For copyright defendants — and for any litigant in the Ninth Circuit — the decision reinforces that local procedural rules cannot be weaponized to avoid merits review. Documenting meet-and-confer efforts in writing, including any refusals or non-responses by opposing counsel, can preserve appellate rights even after an adverse jury verdict.
For copyright plaintiffs, the decision is a reminder that pyrrhic procedural victories at the district-court level can be reversed on appeal, especially where the trial record reflects gamesmanship around meet-and-confer obligations. Engaging substantively on post-trial motions is the more durable path.