Zuccarini Sues NameJet, eNom, VeriSign, and Network Solutions
Wednesday, July 7th, 2010
Lawsuit filed after expired domains sold on NameJet.
John Zuccarini has filed a complaint (pdf) against NameJet, eNom, VeriSign, and Network Solutions in U.S. District Court over the transfer and auctioning of a number of his domain names.
A number of Zuccarini’s domain names were transferred to a court-appointed receiver due to a judgment against Zuccarini in an anti-cybersquatting case. The receiver accidentally let some of the domain names expire, and the domain names were auctioned off on NameJet. (The domains were at Network Solutions, which sends all of its expired domains to NameJet.) A court denied a request for an emergency injunction against the domain names sold at NameJet.
The suit claims breach of contract, conversion, and civil conspiracy. Zuccarini is asking for the transfer of the domains to another party (the receiver) to be deemed illegal and void, payment of the approximately $80,000 the parties earned from auctioning the domains, and significant damages.
Further Reading:
- Judge Shuts Down Zuccarini Fight Against NameJet, NetSol, and VeriSign
- Zuccarini Case Against NameJet, NetSol, et al Moved to Virginia
- Zuccarini Files Another Lawsuit, This Time Adding ICANN to the List
Tags: john zuccarini
You go John!
Not their fault john’s party did not renew
I wouldn’t really call them “John’s party”, I really think John would have preferred keeping the renewal up and keeping the domain names…
He should have used the Cupcake Party.
I think John is going after the wrong party. Why not sue the attorney?
Maybe the most logical money wise, was who he named in the suit.
Im sure the attorney owns a car, property or has a wage to be garnished.
Josh, you are most probably right about that, and possibly a nice car and a nice wage. Who knows, he may be next. Will wait and see what Zuccarini does…
Venue Fail. He is in the District of Southern Florida alleging breach of contract, when the contract specifies that disputes are to be brought in Virginia.
What about forum inconvenience? Is there not a way around the venue issue?
What about FL Long Arm statute? Up until last year, Verisign was registered to do business in FL. And, because you can buy a domain name over the internet, does that not come into play?
No, and no. The entire point of venue clauses in contracts are to avoid those sorts of issues:
http://pub.bna.com/eclr/05civ2024.pdf
If your case is premised on alleging that a contract was violated, then violating the contract in order to enforce it doesn’t make a whole lot of sense.
Venue under the registration agreements can be extremely difficult to argue around. Domainer should carefully consider that in deciding which registrar to use.
The attorney had renewed the domains twice previously who he means he knew what he was doing.