Judge denies motion to strike UDRP cases from MySchool.com pleadings

Plaintiff asked judge to forbid information about its two UDRP losses over the same domain to be used in pleadings.

United States Magistrate Judge John F. Anderson has denied a motion to strike prior UDRPs from pleadings in a cybersquatting lawsuit filed over MySchool.com.

Joseph Carpenter has lost two UDRPs against the domain name MySchool.com. After the second loss, he filed an in rem cybersquatting lawsuit against the domain name MySchool.com.

The current owner of the domain, Original Web Ventures, responded to the suit and made its own counterclaims. Original Web Ventures is asking for the plaintiff’s trademark to be cancelled and $100,000 for reverse domain name hijacking. The response mentioned the two failed UDRPs, and pointed out that one of them was filed against Original Web Ventures. This, it claimed, shows that some of Carpenter’s assertions in his original suit are false.

Carpenter, represented by Steven Rinehart, asked the court (pdf) to strike portions of Original Web Ventures’ pleadings related to the UDRPs. The motion to strike stated:

…portions of Registrant’s Answer and Counterclaims relating to the UDRP process are scandalous, immaterial, impertinent, redundant, submitted as character evidence, and alternatively constitute unnecessary evidentiary detail.

Original Web Ventures, represented by Wiley Rein, argued (pdf) that the UDRP cases are highly relevant to its charges of reverse domain name hijacking.

Judge Anderson denied (pdf) Joseph Carpenter’s motion to strike, writing:

There is nothing scandalous or derogatory about the filing of a UDRP proceeding or having an adverse decision rendered in aUDRP proceeding. Several of the references to the UDRP proceedings are made in response to allegations made by the plaintiff in the complaint and explain the reason for the denial of those allegations. The fact that decisions in UDRP proceedings are not binding on a court and are not afforded deference by a district court does not make those decisions or the proceedings immaterial or impertinent to issues that may arise in an action. This is particularly so in this case since it involves not only claims under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act concerning allegations of bad faith by each party but also claims that plaintiff’s trademark is not valid.