The judge presiding over defunct e-mail marketing firm e360 Insight’s lawsuit against Spamhaus has denied the anti-spam outfit’s motion to dismiss the case.
Spamhaus moved to have the case dismissed in September, claiming e360’s lawyers were stymieing the discovery process.
“We respectfully ask the court to declare that ‘enough is enough,’” said the motion. “We have spent months and months attempting to get the most basic information about the basis of the plaintiff’s claim. Plaintiffs have defaulted, stonewalled and neglected.”
In his ruling, Judge Charles Kocoras wrote that he agreed e360 had been dragging the process out, but Spamhaus’ remedy was too steep.
“Plaintiffs’ delay and the resultant wrangling have caused a significant expenditure of time and effort on the part of Spamhaus and this court,” he wrote. “The relief Spamhaus has primarily requested, dismissal of the entire action with prejudice, is in our view too onerous a remedy for the wrong it seeks to correct. However, the fact remains that the course of action plaintiffs have pursued is unacceptable.”
Kocoras also put a cap on any damages e360 might claim at the original $11.7 million default judgment e360 won against Spamhaus in 2006.
The default judgment was handed down when the anti-spam outfit failed to show up in court, claiming U.S. courts have no jurisdiction over U.K.-based Spamhaus.
When the jurisdictional tactic failed, Spamhaus appealed.
A federal appeals court in 2007 vacated the judgment, ruling that the lower court hadn’t done enough to investigate e360 CEO Dave Linhardt’s damages claims. The suit has since been back in the lower court where Linhardt was supposed to have been documenting how much Spamhaus’s blocks against his e-mail servers have cost his business.
According to this most recent ruling, Linhardt has been claiming various amounts of damage in excess of $135 million.
The court also denied a move by e360 to introduce 16 new witnesses to the suit.
