Jury rejects punitive damages against MGA in T.I. and Tiny Harris' OMG Girlz / OMG dolls lawsuit
A previous jury's verdict for $17.8 million in actual damages still stands. Plaintiff's lawyers had asked the new jury for $90 million to $125 million in punitive damages.
A federal jury in Santa Ana, California, on Wednesday rejected punitive damages against toymaker MGA Entertainment over dolls a previous jury said violated the intellectual property rights of hip-hop moguls Clifford “T.I.” and “Tiny” Harris’ daughter’s OMG Girlz music group.
A separate jury ruled in September 2024 that MGA should pay $17.8 million in actual damages and $53.6 million in punitive, but Senior U.S. District Judge James V. Selna eliminated the punitive award because he didn’t believe the trial evidence showed MGA willfully intended to infringe the group’s trade dress or misappropriate their likeness.
The $17.8 million in actual damages verdict still stands in light of Wednesday’s verdict, though MGA’s lawyers plan to appeal.
The attorneys posed for photographs with MGA founder Isaac Larian outside the federal courthouse after the verdict.
T.I. told me outside the courthouse, “We live to fight another day. God is still good. Blessings still in abundance.”
The OMG Girlz formed in 2009 and disbanded in 2015. MGA announced its L.O.L. Surprise OMG Dolls in 2019, and the dolls have become the most purchased toys in the world.
The seven-day trial was the fourth trial in the case. The first in January 2023 ended in a mistrial after jurors heard deposition testimony related to cultural misappropriation issues and racism that Judge Selna prohibited from trial. The second trial ended in May 2023 with another jury rejecting all claims against MGA, but the judge ordered a new trial based on a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that contradicted a jury instruction that the dolls were an expressive work worthy of First Amendment protection.
The third trial ended on Sept. 23, 2024, with jurors concluding that 14 of the OMG dolls misappropriate the likeness and infringe the trade dress of the OMG Girlz. The eight jurors found one doll misappropriates the likeness, but they concluded it does not infringe the trade dress. They also concluded that another 17 dolls do neither.
The fourth trial concerned only punitive damages. Jurors knew that a previous jury found MGA liable and awarded $17.8 million, but they weren’t told about the $53.6 million in punitive damages and Judge Selna’s decision to eliminate it.
In his closing argument on Wednesday, the Harrises’ lawyer John Keville asked jurors to award $90 million, which he said was approximately five times the previous jury’s $17,872,253 actual damages award or $125 million, which is approximately seven times.
Keville said the five represented each of the five people Larian sued when the Harrises sent him a cease and desist order and he sought a court declaration saying his dolls didn’t infringe the OMG Girlz. The seven represented each of the dolls that the previous jury awarded damages on.
MGA’s lawyer Chad Hummel, a principal in McKool Smith’s Los Angeles office, told jurors that $17.8 million is “punishment enough.” He said no one disputes that Larian didn’t know about the OMG Girlz until he received the Harrises’ letter in December 2020, and the jury must consider the company’s actions during the design processes.
“Did they lie about the design process while they were doing it, or tried to deceive somebody? Absolutely not,” Hummel said.
Hummel worked to dispute the previous jury’s verdict without directly doing so. He showed images of all dolls in the OMG line, including a beginning group that were not to have found to infringed at all. The next group released had only two infringing dolls. Hummel emphasized that one of the dolls found to have infringed had a drum set but the OMG Girlz don’t use drums.
He referenced an oft-played video clip of Larian saying in deposition that the OMG Girlz are nowhere and said, “I’m sorry to say, in 2018, they were done. They weren’t doing anything. It’s a true statement. It’s not malice.”
“To come in here and to say, ‘I want $90 to $125 million based on Mr. Larian saying essentially, ‘They’re nowhere, nothing,’ that’s offensive,” Hummel said.
The eight jurors deliberated about three hours before answering “no” to the first question on their verdict form: “Do you find by clear and convincing evidence that MGA and/or Isaac Larian acted with oppression, fraud, or malice with regard to its misappropriation of the OMG girl’s name, likeness, or identity with respect to any of the seven LOL Surprise OMG Girls: Chillax, Roller Chick, Bhad Gurl, Metal Chick, Miss Divine, Runway Diva and Prism?”
The jurors left without speaking to reporters. One works for the development company Rancho Mission Viejo in south Orange County, which I got to know well while reporting on the city of San Juan Capistrano for the Orange County Register in 2013 and 2014.
When I learned that earlier in the trial, I knew there was no way she was going to award millions in punitives. Judge Selna questioned her outside the presence of other jurors on Tuesday after she said she’d learned the company recently hired Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, where Keville is managing partner of the Houston office.
Of course the concern was whether she could she be fair and not purposely throw the case against MGA because of blind favoritism toward her employer’s law firm, but I figured she was a bigger threat to the plaintiffs in any case, particularly regarding punitive damages in a case about dolls that a previous jury said looked nothing like the girls. She knows how these big law firms operate and what litigation can be like.
Judge Selna heard argument on Tuesday on a motion for judgment in MGA’s favor. He reserved ruling until after the verdict.
A few trial highlights include Selna ruling that jurors could hear deposition testimony from MGA’s counsel because Larian had pierced attorney-client privilege in trial. Larian testified he gave the cease-and-desist letter to his general counsel, but the general counsel who testified in deposition said she didn’t know of a cease-and-desist demand when the dolls were being designed.
Last week, doll designer Blanche Consorti testified she was “correcting” her testimony in the previous trial that the doll Shamone only resembles Michael Jackson by coincidence. But she stood by her testimony that the OMG Girlz didn’t influence any of her designs, and Hummel said in his closing that she “didn’t even know the name OMG Girlz until there was an email sent to her on New Year’s Eve.” The email included a link that Consorti testified she didn’t click, and Hummel said “there’s no proof she did.”
“How much attention are you paying on New Year’s Eve to an email when you’re getting ready to go outside and party? Zero,” Hummel said.
Larian also disputed reports that he’s a billionaire, so Judge Selna allowed Keville to question T.I. about an October 2025 Los Angeles Business Journal article that reported Larian’s net worth at $1.8 billion and said MGA is worth $2.2 billion.
Testifying on Tuesday, T.I. said he’s worth “somewhere” around $85 million. He said he believes MGA needs to be punished in addition to being held liable because the company has “blatant disregard to the creative community.”
“They think that they don’t have to abide by the laws and rules and restrictions of the system that has been created to protect the rights of these creatives,” Hummel said.
Keville asked if he wants to extort MGA as Larian and his attorneys have previously said.
“No, absolutely not,” T.I. said. “I don’t need to extort or swim with anybody or anything, but I’m also blessed with resources and relationships to defend my family rights against corporations.”
One other note: Jurors did not hear about “lingerie-gate” like previous jurors did.
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I watched most of the trial but am not going to share more testimony notes because I’ve been covering other cases such as the upcoming trial for Duane “Keefe D” Davis for Tupac Shakur’s 1996 murder in Las Vegas, the wrongful death lawsuit against Karen Read in Massachusetts and Alex Murdaugh’s double murder re-trial in South Carolina.
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