Having won dismissal on free-speech grounds a lawsuit filed by a man who sued her after his photo was mistakenly used in an online commentary about an inmate by the same name awaiting execution in Texas in early 2024, Kim Kardashian is now seeking nearly $130,000 in attorneys’ fees and costs.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Michael Small had heard arguments on the socialite’s anti-SLAPP motion on Oct. 14 and took the issues under submission before ruling in her favor on Nov 5. Originally filed Feb. 20 to allege defamation, false light invasion of privacy, intentional infliction of emotional distress and negligence, Cantu’s suit was amended May 28 to add a claim for misappropriation of likeness.
On Tuesday, Kardashian’s lead attorney, Emil Petrossian, filed court papers with Small in advance of an April 22 hearing seeking $128,150 in attorneys’ fees and about $1,062 in costs, calling the media personality the “prevailing party” in the case.
Petrossian spent more than 100 hours working on the anti-SLAPP motion at an hourly rate of $900 that was discounted from his normal charge of $1,100 an hour, saving Kardashian about $21,700, according to Petrossian’s court papers.
The state’s anti-SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) law is intended to prevent people from using courts, and potential threats of a lawsuit, to intimidate those who are exercising their First Amendment rights.
“The hitch for the plaintiff is that he failed to provide sufficient evidence that he suffered any injury as a result of Kardashian’s misappropriation of his likeness,” Small wrote in granting the anti-SLAPP motion while adding that Cantu only offered a declaration alleging that he suffered emotional distress and damage to his reputation.
Cantu’s declaration read in part as follows:
“In the days following the post, I received several online messages from strangers who believed that I was going to be executed,” Cantu said. “The post caused me to suffer embarrassment, humiliation, anxiety, emotional and mental anguish, headaches, loss of sleep and loss of reputation.”
Cantu further said that he was especially sensitive at the time of the post because his mother died a month earlier.
“In addition to the other emotional injuries caused by the post, the extreme degree of unwanted attention and publicity I received because of Ms. Kardashian’s post significantly interfered with and disturbed my grieving process.”
Cantu said he contacted Kardashian via Facebook asking her to remove the post, but that her commentary remained up for a while. But in her previously filed declaration, the 45-year-old Kardashian said she was quick to acknowledge the Feb. 26, 2024 photo-posting mistake and take responsibility.
“I immediately instructed my team to delete the … story from Instagram and Facebook and they did so,” Kardashian said. “In a subsequent story that was posted on Instagram and Facebook that same day, I publicly apologized to plaintiff for the mistaken use of his photo.”
According to Cantu, he lives in New York with his wife and two daughters and is a senior project manager at OML Inc. He says he has never been arrested or convicted of a crime.