We mentioned last week that Thomson West was slapped with a $5.18 judgement from a case brought against them by two Law School Professors where West published shoddy pocket parts and attributed the profs’ names to the publication even though they did not write them. We also mentioned that the general consensus from those interested in the decision was that Thomson West would appeal that judgement. According to a report from Courthouse News Service (CNS) this morning, an appeal is coming.

Although CNS couldn’t get Thomson Reuter’s VP of Communications, John Shaughnessy, to comment, they did get him to admit that TR planned an appeal because the verdict had “no basis in fact, law or equity.”   From some of those I’ve talked to in the legal publishing and library industry, the thought is that TR will attempt to get the entire case thrown out by the appeals court, or at a minimum to get the damages reduced significantly.

As the CNS article points out, although Thomson West’s attorney, James Rittinger, defended his clients by saying that even though the pocket part that got published was “terrible,” there was no malice on behalf of his client and backed that up with mentioning that no one even complained about the pocket part when it was released. Even with that said, Rittinger admitted that “They would have been a lot better off if they paid them the 5,000 bucks.”

We’ll just have to wait a bit longer now to see what the final verdict in this mess ends up costing them.