Background
This case pits Moonbug Entertainment — owner of the children’s video franchise CoComelon — against BabyBus, a Chinese company behind Super JoJo. Moonbug alleged BabyBus willfully infringed copyrights in CoComelon’s JJ character and related audiovisual works. In July 2023, a jury found BabyBus liable for willful infringement and awarded over $17 million in damages. The court subsequently awarded $6.1 million in attorney’s fees, bringing the total judgment to approximately $25.6 million.
The Ninth Circuit unanimously affirmed in November 2025 on all seven issues BabyBus raised on appeal. During enforcement, the court discovered that BabyBus had been routing U.S. revenue through Japan BabyBus Co., Ltd. — which the court determined was a “mere shell” used to “launder the money” from levied revenues. The court added Japan BabyBus as a judgment debtor. BabyBus ultimately paid, and Moonbug filed a satisfaction of judgment in June 2025.
Moonbug then sought $933,148 in additional fees covering two categories: $535,155 for the Ninth Circuit appeal and $315,488 for extraordinary judgment enforcement work.
The Court’s Holding
Appellate fees: DENIED. The court conducted an independent Fogerty analysis rather than rubber-stamping the trial-level fee award. While Moonbug won on all issues, the court found BabyBus’s appeal was objectively reasonable. BabyBus had strategically limited its appeal to genuinely contested legal questions — the copyrightability of the JJ character and jury instruction formulations on filtering, merger, and scenes à faire — while explicitly declining to defend the sanctionable trial conduct (fabricated evidence, willfulness denials). The court held: “Parties that lose at trial and are assessed with fees should not be chilled by the potential imposition of further appellate fees from appealing a limited subset of discrete issues on which reasonable minds may differ.”
Enforcement fees: GRANTED in part — $279,962.75. Under Ninth Circuit authority, post-judgment enforcement fees require “unusual or extraordinary collection efforts.” The court drew the line at August 14, 2024 — the date Moonbug discovered that BabyBus’s counsel had secretly served Google with a Third Party Claim of Superior Interest by Japan BabyBus, without informing Moonbug. Everything after that date was “tainted” by BabyBus’s shell-entity maneuver: the emergency assignment motion, alter-ego proceedings, and related discovery were all compensable as extraordinary. Routine levy demands before that date were not.
The court also found BabyBus’s asset discovery obstruction was extraordinary — a “large, well-resourced company with sophisticated counsel” should not have required extensive discovery to pay its judgment. However, fees for a motion to compel that Moonbug improperly filed with the wrong judge were excluded. Fees-on-fees were discounted 50% to reflect Moonbug’s partial success.
Key Takeaways
- Appellate fees require a fresh Fogerty analysis. A trial-level fee award does not automatically extend to the appeal. Courts must separately evaluate whether the appeal itself was objectively unreasonable.
- A curated, reasonable appeal defeats appellate fee claims. Strategically limiting an appeal to genuinely contested legal questions — while not defending prior sanctionable conduct — can shield even a losing appellant from additional fees.
- Shell entities trigger extraordinary enforcement fees. Using a foreign subsidiary to divert judgment funds was the bright line that converted routine collection into compensable extraordinary work.
- Well-resourced defendants face a higher bar. Asset discovery that might be routine against a judgment debtor of unknown means becomes extraordinary when a large, sophisticated company stonewalls payment.
Why It Matters
This ruling establishes practical boundaries for copyright fee-shifting at the appellate and enforcement stages. For appellants, it confirms that a thoughtful, narrowly targeted appeal of a multimillion-dollar judgment will not trigger automatic appellate fees — encouraging meritorious appeals even after an adverse fee award. For judgment creditors, it provides a roadmap for recovering extraordinary enforcement costs when defendants use shell entities or other tactics to frustrate collection. The shell-entity bright line is particularly valuable for cross-border copyright enforcement, where foreign defendants frequently use corporate structures to shield assets.