Not only did the Southern California jury not award $125 million in punitive damages against MGA Entertainment, as requested by rapper “T.I.,” his wife “Tiny,” and their company OMG Girlz, but the jury awarded no punitive damages at all. After a five-day trial solely on the question of punitive damages, the jury rendered its verdict in just over three hours on July 1, 2026.
In 2025, the District Court reduced a prior jury award of over $53 million in punitive damages to just $1 based on its finding that there was a lack of clear and convincing evidence sufficient to support the award. Today's jury verdict is consistent with the court's previous finding, indicating that the evidence simply did not support punitive damages in any amount.
MGA had made a motion during the trial on June 29, 2026, asking the District Court to enter judgment denying punitive damages, arguing that the counterclaimants “were given a second chance to prove punitive damages — and they came back with nothing new.” MGA argued in the motion that its CEO and majority owner, Isaac Larian, is the only person at the company with the authority and decision-making power to determine corporate policy. Further, Larian was never aware of OMG Girlz until receiving their cease and desist letter in 2020, had no intent to copy their likenesses, did not authorize any employees to copy them, and internally promoted the mantra “Be original; don’t copy.” To the extent that any other employee of MGA may have been aware of OMG Girlz and recognized “that there were some similarities between elements of the dolls and the OMG Girlz’s appearance in specific instances,” “such evidence was insufficient to establish willfulness in the prior trial … and counterclaimants have presented no additional evidence that the seven dolls at issue were intentionally based on the OMG Girlz, or that they were designed with willful and knowing disregard of the OMG Girlz’s rights — let alone that Larian did, authorized, or approved any such action.” (Emphasis in original.) The District Court had not yet ruled on the motion when the jury announced its verdict.
The counterclaimants’ arguments included that MGA continued selling infringing dolls after receiving a cease and desist letter advising it of the OMG Girlz’s rights in December 2020, that MGA’s conduct was reprehensible based on its past infringement of third parties’ rights, that it used few safeguards to avoid copying, that the testimony of MGA’s witnesses is inconsistent and not credible, that its use of the acronym “OMG” in the name of its L.O.L. Surprise! O.M.G. dolls is evidence of its malice, fraud, and/or oppression, and that MGA needed to be punished for its conduct.
Perhaps the jury simply did not find that these facts constituted clear and convincing evidence of malice, oppression, or fraud, as required for a punitive damages award.
Or perhaps $125 million was just too big of an ask and created the unintended effect of antagonizing the jury.
The jury unanimously found that MGA and its CEO Isaac Larian did not act with fraud, malice or oppression when they misappropriated the OMG Girlz's name, likeness or identity to use on seven MGA dolls. Accordingly, the jury did not answer the second verdict form question, which asked for the amount of punitive damages to which the Harrises were entitled.