Sue the right person

This person sued the wrong entity to recover his domain name. It’s a shame.

In August 2019, I wrote regarding an unfortunate expired domain name case involving Scott Rigsby.

Rigsby suffered a horrific car accident as a young man. He was dragged hundreds of feet from a pickup. He spent the next 12 years under medical care and underwent 26 surgeries.

He created the Scott Rigsby Foundation, Inc. and set up a website at ScottRigsbyFoundation .org, registered at GoDaddy.

The domain name expired. The person who purchased the domain set up a site that looks similar to the Foundation’s site, but it promotes gambling.

Rigsby blamed GoDaddy for the expiration and subsequently auctioning the domain through its expired domain platform.

It’s an unfortunate use of the domain name. It’s also unfortunate that Rigsby decided to sue GoDaddy over the matter rather than the person who purchased the domain name.

Following a couple of years in the courts, the judge dismissed Rigsby’s third amended complaint. Rigsby is appealing.

It strikes me that this could have been settled a couple of years ago for a lot less money. If the goal is just to get the domain back, I think Rigsby would have prevailed with a simple UDRP filing. Barring that, he ought to have sued the domain registrant.

Instead, Rigsby is trying to convince a judge that GoDaddy is culpable for things like ACPA, which is just not going to happen.