Wait, I'm confused, what happened to the 500k thing?
As I understand it...
There was $250,000 in Screech's GFM (legally speaking, Screech owns that money). Beard is alleged to have racked up enough receipts to drain the entire thing.
Vic/Beard lost the case (completely, they were blown the fuck out), so now Vic (not Screech or the GFM or Beard) is on the hook to pay the Defendants court costs, plus a penalty to make sure Vic doesn't do this kind of thing again.
The Defendants lawyers (for three human Defendants plus a corporation) dropped receipts for $800,000 (this includes costs for Vic's planned appeal).
The Judge hit Vic with $225,000 worth of lawyers fees, plus $15,000 worth of sanctions (so Vic is personally going to be hit with almost $250,000). If Vic is stupid enough to continue with his appeal, then he gets hit with another $280,000 worth of the Defendants lawyers fees (for a total of $525,000).
It's possible that the Defendants won't be forced to pay their lawyers the difference. Their lawyers might call it "good enough" and take what they can get. Also maybe there was some insurance involved.
Screech and Beard could also solve Vic's current money problems by giving the GFM money to Vic instead of Beard. Does Beard have the guts to take the financial hit for his own failure, and not charge Vic any money for his spectacularly bad performance?
Vic's appeal is very unlikely to succeed, because Beard fucked the case up with his incompetence, and the appeal isn't allowed to introduce anything new. The appeal only looks at the Judge's decisions to see if the Judge did something legally-wrong with the garbage Beard submitted (and the Judge apparently went out of his way to ensure that he didn't make any errors, or that any errors leaned in Vic's favor).
Meanwhile, the Defendants lawyers can appeal, because they put down receipts in the amount of $800,000. The Judge knocked that down to $525,000 (assuming Vic appeals) because he was being kind to Vic. An appeal can overturn that kindness.
And, the Defendants lawyers attempting to appeal the reduction in court costs will work more favorably for them if Vic pulls the trigger on his own appeal first.
Basically, the smartest thing Vic could do at this point would be to demand that Screech/Beard be the ones to pay the Defendants from the GFM, while Vic shuts down the appeal. If Vic lets the appeal go forward, then Vic will only be making things much, much worse for himself.