On May 28, a Western District jury found for the defendant Web development vendor in a case Seattle-based law firm The Christiansen Firm brought against Chameleon Data Corp. and its president, Derek Dohn. The plaintiff had accused defendants of transferring ownership of plaintiff’s four domain names to themselves without authorization in order to get leverage over plaintiff in a dispute over the defendants’ bill. (For more background, see STL posts on May 5, February 20, and February 14.)
In a five-day trial, the jury found for defendants on plaintiff’s breach of fiduciary duty claim and on defendants’ counterclaim for breach of contract. However, the jury did not award the defendants any damages on that claim.
The court awarded defendants costs but did not address their argument that they should receive attorney’s fees for prevailing in an “exceptional” case under the Lanham Act based on the court’s previous order granting them summary judgment because the four domain names at issue (thechristensenfirm.com, thechristensenfirm.net, christensenfirm.com, and cc-lawfirm.com) were either generic (cc-lawfirm) or descriptive (The Christensen Firm).
After plaintiff rested, the court granted defendants judgment as a matter of law on plaintiff’s claim for conversion but declined to do so on plaintiff’s claim for breach of fiduciary duty.
The case cite is The Christensen Firm v. Chameleon Data Corp., No. 06-337 (W.D. Wash.) (Zilly, J.).