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Monster never responded to the lawsuit, and a California court issued a default judgment.
A California ma has been awarded a $486,432 judgment against Epik founder Rob Monster and Epik Inc. over a stolen domain name.
Robert M. Lee registered the domain name rle.com in 1995. In a lawsuit he filed in 2019, he alleged that the domain was stolen from his Network Solutions account in 2016. The domain was subsequently transferred to GoDaddy and then to Epik.
According to the suit (see the first amended complaint, pdf), Lee asked GoDaddy to return the domain, but it refused. After the domain was transferred to Epik, Lee said he contacted the registrar and spoke with its then-CEO, Rob Monster, in December 2019.
In a declaration (pdf) filed with the court, Lee summarized the call, as quoted here:
- I explained to ROB MONSTER in my phone call of December 5, 2019 that the domain rle.com was taken by JOHN DOE who was impersonating me and I then demanded that the domain name be returned to my custody and control.
- ROB MONSTER admitted to me during this phone call that he and EPIK INC. had the ability to return the domain rle.com to my custody.
- During this conversation ROB MONSTER did not ask me for any kind of additional proof to verify that the domain was stolen, or that I was the true Robert Lee. For example, he did not ask me for a driver’s license (like GoDaddy did) to verify my identity. Notably, he also did not ask me to establish a chain of title back to Network Solutions.
- In addition, at no point did ROB MONSTER indicate that he needed to contact JOHN DOE to try and sort out who the true “Robert Lee” and owner was.
- Instead, ROB MONSTER appeared to believe me that the domain was stolen.
- However, ROB MONSTER told me that he would only return the domain to my control under certain conditions.
- During the conversation I had mentioned I was a web designer and owned other valuable domain names. ROB MONSTER immediately expressed an interest in hosting them.
- ROB MONSTER told me that rle.com would only be returned to my control if I transferred all my other domains to EPIK INC.
- ROB MONSTER indicated I would not be charged any money for the return of rle.com, and he did not mention any possible problems with taking the domain name from JOHN DOE when he presented this proposed agreement.
- I understood from ROB MONSTER that if I refused to transfer all my other web domains to EPIK INC. that rle.com would not be returned to me under any circumstances.
- During my conversation with ROB MONSTER he represented that he alone was making the decision whether to return my domain name to me, he at no point referred to any sort of external policy or legal requirement that dictated a procedure for returning the domain name to me.
- At no point did I consent for EPIK INC. or ROB MONSTER to host or have control over my domain name rle.com. In fact, I protested their continual control of the domain, and I made this protest known to EPIK INC. and ROB MONSTER on December 11, 2019 during our call.
- I refused ROB MONSTER’s offer, and the domain has remained with EPIK INC and ROB MONSTER to this day.
There’s no public record of Monster’s side of the story because neither he nor Epik Inc responded to the lawsuit.
(GoDaddy did respond, at first trying to get the company dismissed from the suit. Eventually, Lee and GoDaddy entered mediation and were working on a settlement, although it doesn’t appear that the settlement has come to fruition yet.)
The court issued a default judgment against Monster and Epik Inc on May 9, 2023. It came to light now because the judgment was transferred to King County, where Monster lives, and Lee filed an application for a writ of garnishment.
There are two wrinkles in this case.
First, Epik (the domain registrar) is now owned by a different company, Epik LLC. The judgment is against Epik Inc and Monster himself.
Second, it appears the domain was sold to domain investor Brent Oxley in mid-to-late 2022.
Source from Domain Name Wire
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