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Judge Orders American Optometric Society to Pay American Board of Optometry Attorney Fees
| December 7, 2012 12:18 AM |
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LOS ANGELES—On Monday, Dec. 3, 2012, Judge A. Howard Matz of the U.S. District Court, Central District of California, ordered that the
American Optometric Society (AOS) pay the
American Board of Optometry’s (ABO) attorney fees incurred as a result of a false advertising lawsuit the AOS brought against the ABO, in which he ruled in favor of the ABO, as originally
reported in VMail, Aug. 27, 2012.
The
judgment was made based on the fact that “the Court in exceptional cases may award attorney fees to the prevailing party,” and Judge Matz determined that the AOS’s claim was “groundless and unreasonable, and it is an exceptional case warranting an award of attorneys’ fees to ABO as the prevailing party.”
In his ruling this week, in which he ordered the AOS to pay the ABO attorney fees in the amount of $462,508, Judge Matz ruled: “The Court finds that the amount is reasonable. AOS makes no specific objections to the hours or rates billed by ABO’s counsel or the overall amount requested, other than to assert that the amount is more than AOS’s assets and would result in it filing for bankruptcy.”
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