GoDaddy expired domain clawback lawsuit — Judge dismisses

Judge states plaintiffs didn’t show subject matter jurisdiction.

The judge overseeing a dispute over GoDaddy’s clawback of expired domains has dismissed the suit (pdf) over subject matter jurisdiction.

The Swedish firm Crisby Studio AB bought calor.com (heat/hot in Spanish) in an expired domain auction at GoDaddy in early April this year. GoDaddy returned the domain to its previous registrant regarding two months later, and Crisby sued GoDaddy in August.

A second plaintiff, Prime Loyalty, was later added to the suit. It purchased the domain name butane.com for $19,755 in a GoDaddy auction and also had it clawed back by GoDaddy and returned to the same registrant as calor.com.

GoDaddy argued that the lawsuit suffered from two fatal defects: (1) it did not allege the citizenship of the Plaintiff LLCs’ constituent members; and (2) since diversity jurisdiction is determined at the time of filing, adding Prime did not cure the initial lack of diversity.

The court agreed and dismissed the case without prejudice. This means the lawsuit can be refiled.