Court Wipes Out SAD Scheme Default Judgment Due to Improper Email Service–Deckers v. Litfun

Deckers owns the UGG brand. It is a repeat SAD Scheme plaintiff. In this case, it sued 30 defendants for infringement, got permission to serve the lawsuit by email, and got default judgments against 18 defendants. One of those defendants, Litfun, subsequently made an appearance in the case and sought to unwind the default judgment for, among other reasons, improper service in light of the Kangol case. In Kangol, the Seventh Circuit said that email service to Chinese defendants isn’t permitted unless the defendant’s address is unknown. So at issue in this case is Deckers’ diligence about determining the defendant’s address. Here’s what Deckers did: Deckers explained that it searched for the address and entity associated with Litfun’s Amazon account on Google Maps, Baidu Maps, and Bing Maps. Deckers also searched for the address and entity associated with an earlier lawsuit it brought against a Walmart store using the seller alias “LITFUN” on the same platforms. The searches did not…