Opinion ID: 774479
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Seven Words II and Subsequent Litigation

Text: 11 Meanwhile, after the Seven Words I court first raised the issue of transfer and only a month before argument on the motion, in May 1999, Seven Words surreptitiously filed the instant action against NSI, Seven Words II, in California superior court. 5 Seven Words did not advise the district court in Seven Words I or NSI of this filing; the complaint was not served until after the district court granted the transfer motion in June 1999. The complaint asserted the same factual allegations as Seven Words I, but it included all sixteen domain names and did not include a federal claim. Rather, Seven Words alleged that NSI's failure to register the domain names violated the liberty of speech clause of the California Constitution. NSI removed the case to federal court based on diversity, and Seven Words II was assigned to the same judge as Seven Words I. 12 In July 1999, NSI filed a motion to dismiss Seven Words II under Rule 12(b)(6), arguing that Seven Words failed to state a claim under state law or, in the alternative, that the court should transfer the action to the district court in New Hampshire for consolidation with Seven Words I and Haberstroh. Seven Words opposed the motion and filed its own motion, seeking remand of Seven Words II to the California superior court on the ground that the district court should abstain from deciding the California constitutional question. 13 In October 1999, at the same time the district court transferred Seven Words I to New Hampshire, the court also granted NSI's motion to dismiss Seven Words II , denied Seven Words's motion to remand, and dismissed Seven Words II with prejudice for failure to state a claim against NSI under the California Constitution. This dismissal is the order from which Seven Words appeals. 14 After the appeal of Seven Words II to this court, Seven Words, for--in its own words--tactical reasons, failed to comply with various orders issued by the New Hampshire court in the Seven Words I litigation, resulting in dismissal of Seven Words I in January 2000. By its terms, the Deposit of Domain Name Declaration, which granted the Seven Words I court control over the registrations of the domain names at issue, expired with the dismissal of that case. The New Hampshire court, however, maintained control of the four domain names that were at issue in Haberstroh. 15 Seven Words affirmatively chose to put all of its eggs in the Seven Words II basket. Back in July 1999, six of the requested domain names were registered to third parties by other domain name registrars. In February 2000, Seven Words sought a TRO from the Seven Words II district court, restraining NSI from allowing another domain name registrar to register the ten remaining domain names to third parties pending this appeal. The district court denied the application. Seven Words, however, never appealed the district court's ruling and did not make any further application for injunctive relief. As a result, by the time the parties filed their briefs on appeal, a total of twelve of the sixteen domain names for which Seven Words sought registration had already been registered to third parties by other domain name registrars; the other four domain names remained in the control of the Haberstroh court. 16 After the parties' briefing on appeal in this case, in September 2000, the New Hampshire district court filed its opinion in Haberstroh. See Nat'l A-1 Adver., 121 F. Supp. 2d at 178-79 (holding that NSI did not violate Haberstroh's constitutional rights by refusing registration of the disputed domain names). Thereafter, the New Hampshire court and/or NSI released the four remaining domain names. Again, Seven Words took no action to prevent their release. 17 By February 2001, the domain names had been registered by other domain name registrars to third parties. Thus, more than two months before argument in this case, all sixteen disputed names had already been registered. Just days before oral argument, NSI informed this court of this development, moving to vacate the district court's judgment with instructions to dismiss the case as moot. We note, with respect to both parties, that [i]t is the duty of counsel to bring to the federal tribunal's attention, `without delay,' facts that may raise a question of mootness. Arizonans for Official English v. Arizona, 520 U.S. 43, 68 n.23 (1997) (emphasis in original). Although the parties addressed mootness in their briefing on appeal, they did so before the remaining domain names had been registered to third parties.