Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc.

Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc.
Supreme Court of the United States
Argued December 8, 1993 Decided March 1, 1994
Full case name	John Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc.
Citations	510 U.S. 517 (more) 114 S. Ct. 1023; 127 L. Ed. 2d 455; 29 U.S.P.Q.2d 1881
Case history
Prior	Fantasy, Inc. v. Fogerty, 664 F. Supp. 1345 (N.D. Cal. 1987); affirmed, 984 F.2d 1524 (9th Cir. 1993); cert. granted, 509 U.S. 903 (1993).
Holding
In copyright suits, prevailing defendants receive attorney's fees solely at the court's discretion, just as prevailing plaintiffs do.
Court membership
Chief Justice William Rehnquist Associate Justices Harry Blackmun · John P. Stevens Sandra Day O'Connor · Antonin Scalia Anthony Kennedy · David Souter Clarence Thomas · Ruth Bader Ginsburg
Case opinions
Majority	Rehnquist, joined by Blackmun, Stevens, O'Connor, Scalia, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg
Concurrence	Thomas
Laws applied
17 U.S.C. § 505

Fogerty v. Fantasy, Inc., 510 U.S. 517 (1994), was a United States Supreme Court case that addressed the standards governing awards of attorneys' fees in copyright cases. The Copyright Act of 1976 authorizes, but does not require, the court to award attorneys' fees to "the prevailing party" in a copyright action. In Fogerty, the Court held that such attorneys'-fees awards are discretionary, and that the same standards should be applied in the case of a prevailing plaintiff and a prevailing defendant.