COPPERFIELD

trial was “not grossly unreasonable.”

Denton awarded upward of $75,000 in attorney fees for the defendants, along with $25,000 in trial costs to lawyers for Copperfield and the resort company.

That’s far less than what was requested. MGM Resorts and Copperfield’s attorneys reported incurring legal fees of nearly $400,000, while attorneys for the construction crew asked for more than $221,000, the judge wrote in his order.

He wrote that the attorney fees were reasonable but that ordering the plaintiffs to pay them entirely “would not be justified.” Denton called the defendants’ efforts to receive full payment for expert witnesses “unfair,” referring to one witness who charged nearly $50,000 for his testimony.

Denton said the plaintiffs should pay $7,500 for that witness, $7,500 for another and $10,000 for legal research.

After hearing more than a monthand-a-half of testimony and arguments, jurors in May decided that claims against the magician were unfounded and that neither Copperfield nor other defendants in the case should be held liable for Cox’s fall and subsequent injuries.

Cox’s lawsuit alleged that Copperfield and others should be held accountable for a brain injury he suffered while volunteering for an illusion. Cox and 12 other volunteers seemed to disappear from Copperfield’s elevated stage when they were whisked off the platform by flashlight-wielding stagehands.

The jury decided that Cox’s injuries were 100 percent attributable to him, though they also found Copperfield and MGM Grand negligent. Jurors believed that the magician and the hotel should have conducted more inquiry into previous falls, but they couldn’t speculate whether such inquiry would have prevented Cox’s fall.

An appeal filed by Cox’s lawyers with the Nevada Supreme Court is set for a settlement conference next month.

Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @ randompoker on Twitter.