MinnLawyer Blog

Jammie Thomas-Rasset has no intention of paying the $1.5 million verdict against her for downloading music from the Internet, her lawyer announced today. In the third jury trial, Thomas-Rasset was hit with the verdict, compared to $222,000 in the first trial and $1.92 million in the second.
The latest verdict represents $62,500 for each of the 24 songs she downloaded, compared to the statutory cap of $150,000 per song.

Thomas-Rasset turned down an offer to settle for $25,000 last January, and also turned down an earlier remittitur of $54,000. This third trial didn’t address liability, so she was in trouble when Chief Judge Michael Davis refused Thomas-Rasset’s request to instruct the jury that “Your award of statutory damages must bear a reasonable relationship to the harm suffered by each plaintiff as a result of the defendant’s actions.”