Case 1:18-cv-25474-RAR Document 256 Entered on FLSD Docket 06/04/2021 Page 8 of 14
2020)—that even where the discovery rule dictates the accrual of a copyright infringement claim, a three-year lookback period from the time a suit is filed must be used to determine the extent of the relief available. In Petrella, the Supreme Court explicitly delimited damages to the three years prior to the filing of a copyright infringement action. Petrella, 572 U.S. at 671–72, 77. As the Second Circuit persuasively reasoned in Sohm, the Petrella Court’s holding that laches was inapplicable to actions under the Copyright Act was partially based “on the conclusion that the statute ‘itself takes account of the delay’ by limiting damages to the three years prior to when suit is filed.” 959 F.3d at 52 (quoting Petrella, 572 U.S. at 677). The three-year limitation on damages was thus an integral part of the result in Petrella and is binding precedent—not mere dicta as Plaintiffs contend. Id. (“We are bound ‘not only [by] the result [of a Supreme Court opinion,] but also those portions of the opinion necessary to that result.”) (quoting Seminole Tribe of Fla. v. Florida, 517 U.S. 44, 67 (1996)). Accordingly, Magistrate Judge Becerra correctly concluded that Plaintiffs’ potential damages in this case are limited to the three-year period prior to Plaintiffs filing suit.
III. Whether the Knox and Stevens Affidavits were appropriately stricken
The Court reviews Magistrate Judge Becerra’s striking of the Knox and Stevens affidavits for clear error. See Moore v. M/V Sunny USA, No. 18-81181, 2019 WL 7207109, at *5 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 27, 2019), aff’d, No. 20-10092, 2021 WL 613696 (11th Cir. Feb. 17, 2021) (“A motion to strike … is a nondispositive motion that falls within [Federal Rule of Civil Procedure] 72’s clearly erroneous or contrary to law standard.”) (quotation omitted).
“A finding is ‘clearly erroneous’ when although there is evidence to support it, the reviewing court on the entire evidence is left with the definite and firm conviction that a mistake has been committed.” Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 284 n.14 (1982) (quoting United
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