CAFC reverses ED Texas and finds "for" award of attorneys fees; "this suit should never have been filed"

Defendant-appellant ADS prevailed at the CAFC, with an ED Tx decision against attorneys fees REVERSED and remanded.


The review was under an "abuse of discretion" standard, of which the CAFC noted:


An abuse of discretion occurs when, inter alia, the district court
“base[s] its ruling on an erroneous view of the law or on a
clearly erroneous assessment of the evidence.” Highmark
Inc. v. Allcare Health Mgmt. Sys., Inc., 134 S. Ct. 1744,
1748 n.2 (2014) (internal quotation marks and citation
omitted). “A factual finding is clearly erroneous if, despite
some supporting evidence, we are left with the definite
and firm conviction that a mistake has been made.” Insite
Vision Inc. v. Sandoz, Inc., 783 F.3d 853, 858 (Fed. Cir.
2015) (internal quotation marks and citation omitted).

(...)

A district court
abuses its discretion when, as here, it “fail[s] to conduct
an adequate inquiry.” Atl. Research Mktg. Sys., Inc. v.
Troy, 659 F.3d 1345, 1360 (Fed. Cir. 2011).



The concluding paragraph of the CAFC decision:



This suit never should have been filed, and ADS
deserves to be fully compensated for the significant attorneys’
fees it has incurred. To hold otherwise would only
“encourage the litigation of unreasonable [and] groundless
claims.” Highway Equip. Co., Inc. v. FECO, Ltd., 469
F.3d 1027, 1035 (Fed. Cir. 2006); see also Octocom Sys.,
Inc. v. Hous. Computer Servs., Inc., 918 F.2d 937, 943
(Fed. Cir. 1990) (“Where a party blindly disregards long
established authority and raises arguments with no
factual foundation . . . the judicial process has not been
used, but abused.”).






link: http://www.cafc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/opinions-orders/16-2521.Opinion.6-2-2017.1.PDF