Federal jury says toymaker owes T.I. and Tiny $71 million for OMG Girlz's doll claims
The verdict includes $53 million in punitive damages for likeness misappropriation related to the company's popular L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. Dolls.
A federal jury on Monday said toymaker MGA Entertainment owes $71.4 million to hip-hop moguls Clifford “T.I.” and Tameka “Tiny” Harris for dolls that infringe the unique style of the OMG Girlz music group.
The jurors in Santa Ana, California, agreed 14 of the popular L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. Dolls misappropriate the likeness and infringe the trade dress of the group, which includes Bahja Rodriguez, Breaunna Womack and Tiny’s daughter Zonnique Pullins. The eight jurors found one doll misappropriates the likeness, but they concluded it does not infringe the trade dress. They also concluded another 17 dolls do neither.
They awarded $17.8 million in damages, then awarded $53.6 million in punitive damages after hearing brief argument from plaintiff’s attorney John Keville of Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP and MGA’s lawyer Paul Loh of Willenken LLP.
The judgment is not final because the jury’s punitive award covers only likeness misappropriation. Senior U.S. District Judge James V. Selna is to decide the punitive amount for trade dress infringement, and he has not yet done so.
Monday’s verdict is a huge victory for the OMG Girlz after a jury in May 2023 sided with MGA following two hours of deliberation. Judge Selna threw out of the verdict in September 2023 because a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in another case invalidated a jury instruction that said MGA’s dolls were protected by the First Amendment.
In this trial, the jury concluded that MGA’s dolls are not expressive works protected by the First Amendment. They also concluded the OMG Girlz have a protectable trade dress, and that MGA acted with “oppression, fraud or malice.”
The OMG Girlz have become more active in the last couple years after last touring in 2015. The group originally included Reginae Carter, who is rapper Lil Wayne’s daughter. She was in court last week.
Keville argued in trial that the group continues to have a unique trade dress involving vibrant hair color, experimental and urban outfits and the name OMG Girlz. He argued MGA styled some dolls on outfits worn by Zonnique, Bahja and Breaunna, including during a 2017 New Year’s Eve performance in Atlanta.
Opening statements were Sept. 3. Jurors got the case Friday afternoon and returned Monday for about five hours of deliberation. The actual damages award of $17,872,253 matches the profits for the seven dolls. The L.O.L. Surprise dolls were first released in 2019 are among the most purchased toys in the world.
The punitive award of $53,616,759 is exactly three times the actual damages award.
After the verdict, Tiny left the courthouse smiling with Zonnique, Bahja and Breaunna. She said the jury “gave us what they felt like we deserved.”
“Yeah, we couldn’t be more happy or thankful,” Tiny said.
Bahja said the verdict is “a big win for creatives, because often times we feel like our ideas are just ideas, and we can’t fight for them.”
In a video call with reporters, T.I. said the verdict “is a testament to the relentlessness and resilience of my wife and my daughter, my nieces, and we have phenomenal counsel.”
“We just happy that the jury was able to see through the shenanigans, and the judge was extremely fair. And, you know, we’re just happy that we was able to come out on top and just, you know, fight for creatives and our intellectual properties,” he said.
T.I. said large corporations show “no consideration for the people who actually put hard work and effort into into building and creating things from nothing.”
“I’m happy not not for me, more so for my wife and my daughter and my nieces,” T.I. said. “Because I watched how hard they work, and I know how much this means to them, and I’m just happy for them.”
T.I. said businesses serve people, and they need “to have a touch on the reality of culture, especially if you’re marketing to Black and brown people.”
Evidence in trial showed MGA knows the dolls appeal to children of color: An MGA executive sent CEO Isaac Larian in 2019 that said, “We need to be careful to protect our non-white OMG base. OMG skews nonwhite. Specifically black.”
Here’s T.I. talking outside court last week:
MGA lawyers declined to speak with a reporter after the verdict. Jennifer Keller and Chase Scolnick of Keller Anderle LLP represented the company in the first two trials (the first was a mistrial and never reached a verdict), but they were not involved in the third trial.
Loh’s team included Willenken partner Jason H. Wilson as well as Mark Finkelstein of Umberg Zipser LLP, who also worked with Keller and Scolnick.
They presented a similar defense to Keller’s by calling the case a money grab, calling the Harris family extortionists and pointing to their company names Grand Hustle LLC and Pretty Hustle LLC, as well as there former reality shows, while decrying their claims as their grandest hustle yet. They did not, however, question the morality of the family by pointing to rap lyrics and highlighting the n-word as Keller did in the first trial and tried to do in the second, while arguing MGA would never base dolls on the Harris family.
Keville said he’s proud of the Harrises “for hanging in there and being called names every time. Standing up for grace and not yelling back and calling people names.”
The previous trial focused on claims regarding 32 dolls. Keville in this trial argued only seven dolls were at issue, but jurors still considered the trade dress and misappropriation claims for the other dolls.
In his closing argument, Loh said he would let jurors “in on a little secret.”
“You know why they’re running away from the 25? Because if you look closely at some of those 25, it would expose the absurdity of their claims.”
Jurors didn’t see it that way: They ruled seven of the 25 both infringed the trade dress and misappropriated the likeness, and they ruled one misappropriated the likeness but did not infringe the trade dress.
“The jury got which side was in there telling the truth and which side was in there not, and they sent the message loud and clear,” Keville told reporters.
Keville worked the case with Robert Green and Chante Westmoreland of Sheppard Mullin in Houston, as well as Houston-based attorney B’Ivory LaMarr.
The case’s contentious background
The first trial ended in a mistrial in January 2023 after jurors mistakenly heard deposition testimony from a woman who said she stopped buying the OMG Dolls because, “I did not want to support a company that steals from African Americans and their ideas.” Judge Selna had ordered attorneys to stay away from cultural appropriation and racism claims.
The case grew particularly contentious after Keller said the n-word when cross-examining Zonnique about her use of the word in song lyrics. The questions were meant to support MGA’s argument that it would not model dolls on T.I. and Tiny or their family, but it led one juror to complain after the mistrial that MGA was trying to appeal to racism. T.I.’s and Tiny’s lawyer Erin Ranahan of Winston & Strawn LLP said in a filing after the mistrial that Keller engaged in “racist behavior,” which led to Keller and Scolnick requesting a $75,000 sanction against Ranahan that Judge Selna rejected.
The judge prohibited MGA’s lawyers from asking questions about Zonnique’s profane song lyrics in the second and third trials, as well as T.I.’s. He also didn’t allow them to ask T.I. about his criminal convictions, deeming them irrelevant and highly prejudicial, and he wouldn’t allow questions about a now-closed Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office sexual assault investigation into T.I. and Tiny.
VH1 cancelled the couple’s reality show T.I. & Tiny: Friends & Family Hustle — a sequel to the earlier T.I. & Tiny: The Family Hustle — in 2021 after the D.A’s office publicly announced the investigation, though no charges were filed.
But much of the evidence remained the same through the three trials, including a deposition video in which MGA CEO Isaac Larian said combatively, “Your OMG band are nowhere. Trust me. Nowhere.”
MGA initiated the case against the Harrises as a request for declaratory relief, which Loh tried to explain in his argument against punitive damages after the initial $17.8 million verdict came in on Monday. He said the company was responding to a letter from the Harrises and “we acted in good faith.”
“You may disagree, but I hope you understand the place we were at when that letter came and how we responded,” Loh told the jury.
Loh also noted that the damages award means the Harrises are “receiving 100 percent of the profits — no discounts whatsoever.”
“So in light of that, we believe that that is already a very substantial amount of award of punitive damages,” Loh said. “A message is being sent, OK?”
Should jurors believe punitive damages are warranted, “we would ask you to consider the range of $500,000 up to $1 million, because again, they are already being awarded 100% of the profits on the dolls,” Loh said.
In his argument for punitives, Keville pointed to Larian’s comments about the OMG Girlz being “nowhere.” He said it goes to “whether they thought they were weak and they could take advantage of them.”
“I think that’s exactly what we saw,” Keville said.
Keville said MGA is a “multibillion company” so the amount “needs to be a significant number to send a message to them.” He suggested two times the $17.8 million actual damages or four times sand said, “whether it’s more or less, or anywhere in that range, whatever you think is necessary to teach MGA to deter their repeated conduct misconduct, we trust in your judgment.”
I plan to write another article about the case and verdict that looks at what will happen to the dolls and explains MGA’s appellate options. I’ll also include more from the trial testimony (I have a few transcripts, including from T.I.’s testimony) and look at Judge Selna’s yet-to-be-issued ruling on punitive damages for trade dress infringement.
Meanwhile, enjoy my videos of T.I. and Tiny’s son King, who was in court last week to support the OMG Girlz.
T.I.’s son Domani also was in court for some of the trial.
Previous articles:
May 27, 2023: Jury finds in favor of toymaker MGA in trial with T.I. and Tiny Harris over OMG Girlz, OMG dolls
May 26, 2023: 'Extremely disturbed': Judge calls out MGA's lawyers for accusations against T.I.'s lawyers
May 22, 2023: Doll designer breaks down after cross-exam about 'lingerie-gate', Marilyn Manson's Nazi cap
May 18, 2023: ‘Humor, sarcasm and satire’: Rapper T.I. testifies in civil infringement trial over dolls, OMG Girlz
May 15, 2023: Racial issues still lurk in toymaker’s new trial with T.I. and Tiny Harris over OMG Girlz and dolls
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Great story. Interesting implications for free speech that may extend beyond toys and entertainment.