Page:Warner Chappell Music, Inc. v. Nealy.pdf/5

Rh plaintiff to raise claims about even very old infringements if he discovered them within the prior three years. Nealy urged that all his claims were timely under that rule because he did not learn of Warner Chappell’s infringing conduct until 2016—just after he got out of prison and less than three years before he sued.

In the District Court, though, Nealy ran into a different timing objection, related not to his ability to bring suit but to his recovery of damages. Warner Chappell accepted that the discovery rule governed the timeliness of Nealy’s claims. But it argued that even if Nealy could sue under that rule for infringements going back ten years, he could recover damages or profits for only those occurring in the last three. The District Court agreed. Relying on a decision from the Second Circuit, the court held that even when claims for old infringements are timely, monetary relief is “limited” to “the three years prior to the filing” of the action. App. to Pet. for Cert. 26a (citing Sohm v. Scholastic Inc., 959 F. 3d 39, 51–52 (CA2 2020)). So Nealy could bring claims for infringing acts beyond that three-year period, but could not recover any money for them. Appreciating the impact of that ruling, the District Court certified it for interlocutory appeal. See App. to Pet. for Cert. 36a; 28 U. S. C. §1292(b).

The Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit reversed, rejecting the notion of a three-year damages bar on a timely claim. The court “assume[d] for the purposes of answering” the certified question that all of Nealy’s claims were “timely under the discovery rule.” 60 F. 4th 1325, 1331 (2023). And on that assumption, the court ruled, he could recover full damages. Allying itself with the Ninth rather than the Second Circuit, the court held that a plaintiff with a timely claim under the discovery rule may obtain “retrospective relief for [an] infringement” even if it “occurr[ed] more than three years before the lawsuit’s filing.” Ibid. (citing Starz Entertainment v. MGM, 39 F. 4th 1236, 1244 (CA9 2022)).