Gaptooth
Established Member
- Impact
- 27
I am more than saddened to tell you all that we have reached the end of this long road today. It will be 14 months on Wednesday that we have been fighting this fight for the right to keep my name. Money in the hands of people with no values won today.
Today our motion to get a stay so we could appeal has been denied by the district judge. We went to the district court after the same judge that ruled to sell my domain to her denied our stay pending appeal. We needed the stay "temporary restraining order" to stop the sale while we could appeal. This doesn't stop us from appealing but if we appealed after the sale goes through and win we won't be able to get my name back. The court has no jurisdiction to demand she return my name after they sell it to her. So it all stops here. A day late and a dollar short, minus my name.
I'm attaching both the motion for the stay and the denial in case you're interested in reading it. The new attorneys that stepped forward are awesome and did a lot of work in a very short amount of time to try and make this happen. The twenty page motion they wrote tells all. It seems in bankruptcy that you have no rights however. If you ever are forced to suffer through one make sure to claim EVERYTHING. Your toenails included. I didn't include mine but pretty sure if she wanted them and offered any kind of money for them the court would send someone over to rip them off of my feet.
There was only one thing that could have saved us so we could appeal, short of the stay, and that was putting up a $20K bond to protect the trustee's interest in the sale, should she walk away while we appeal and lose. We tried very hard to get one but you need a letter of credit to make that happen. The trustee knows and I'm sure you know, people who have been through a bankruptcy have no credit. She wouldn't be walking away, we all know that but this must have been the trustee's way of making sure we couldn't appeal.
Out of miracles now and unless a 20K bond dropped out of the heavens into our attorney's lap before morning so we could move forward with the appeal it's gone. That's not going to happen so please know I tried with everything I have to fight this. I fought so hard and so long because this is wrong. I believe these attorneys could have won on appeal but it will take a judge that isn't afraid to rule on something that has never happened before. De novo. They depend on case law now days. There is no case law to back up our claims because it's not happened before.
The site will go down tomorrow. I will be turning it back on under grandmaheidi.com The new name you all gave to me. The grand kids call me grammy.
Thank you to David Weslow and Ari Meltzer of Wiley Rein for all of their hard work for us on this. They are amazing attorneys who treated us with immense respect even though we were not able to pay them. They kept us informed through each step which isn't how all attorneys work. We have experience in this now. David never left our side, did a lot of work writing briefings helping with the bankruptcy case and has been with us from the start of this thing to the bitter end. Thank you to Henry, DeGraaff & McCormick law firm, Jacob Degraaff and Christina Henry for stepping in with their hearts at the last minute trying to save this. These people care about justice and debtors rights. As far as I can tell debtors have none. This needs to change. No one should be able to take and sell your name. Your own name! Thank you to all the domain community that came forward to voice their concerns, Joseph Peterson for bringing this to your attention, all of the discussion and tweeting about the injustice of this mess, wrote stories and published on their websites John Colascione, Andrew Allemann, Angela St. Julian, Konstantinos Zournas, Ron Jackson at DN Journal, Raymond Hackney, (sorry if I missed anyone) and to those who also donated to our legal fund. We can’t thank you enough! What Angela St. Julien did by donating her ticket sales from DNHouston forever seals in my heart that there are good people in our world and they out weigh and have more meaning than the bad. Thank you Angela, you are a wonderful person! From our hearts we appreciate all of the support all of you have given us.
I wish I could have made a difference in this never happening again. Perhaps it did make a big enough impact that no one will ever “not claim” a domain name in a bankruptcy ever again. If you ever find yourself in that unfortunate position claim everything! List it all! It isn’t what you deem as property. The court said it didn’t matter if we thought it was property or not…we were suppose to list it as property. How crazy does that sound? List everything whether it’s property or not…because if someone wants it and they have enough money they will find a way to make it property. The page to list things on is not large enough to list it all. They generalize “furniture” “clothing”…etc. If I had a do over I would list every item separately…each piece of furniture and every pair of underwear, along with my toenails! There would be many pages and it would most likely irritate the people in charge but it would protect thy toenails!
I'm sorry that we didn't win it. Not just for my husband and myself but for the domain community.
Today our motion to get a stay so we could appeal has been denied by the district judge. We went to the district court after the same judge that ruled to sell my domain to her denied our stay pending appeal. We needed the stay "temporary restraining order" to stop the sale while we could appeal. This doesn't stop us from appealing but if we appealed after the sale goes through and win we won't be able to get my name back. The court has no jurisdiction to demand she return my name after they sell it to her. So it all stops here. A day late and a dollar short, minus my name.
I'm attaching both the motion for the stay and the denial in case you're interested in reading it. The new attorneys that stepped forward are awesome and did a lot of work in a very short amount of time to try and make this happen. The twenty page motion they wrote tells all. It seems in bankruptcy that you have no rights however. If you ever are forced to suffer through one make sure to claim EVERYTHING. Your toenails included. I didn't include mine but pretty sure if she wanted them and offered any kind of money for them the court would send someone over to rip them off of my feet.
There was only one thing that could have saved us so we could appeal, short of the stay, and that was putting up a $20K bond to protect the trustee's interest in the sale, should she walk away while we appeal and lose. We tried very hard to get one but you need a letter of credit to make that happen. The trustee knows and I'm sure you know, people who have been through a bankruptcy have no credit. She wouldn't be walking away, we all know that but this must have been the trustee's way of making sure we couldn't appeal.
Out of miracles now and unless a 20K bond dropped out of the heavens into our attorney's lap before morning so we could move forward with the appeal it's gone. That's not going to happen so please know I tried with everything I have to fight this. I fought so hard and so long because this is wrong. I believe these attorneys could have won on appeal but it will take a judge that isn't afraid to rule on something that has never happened before. De novo. They depend on case law now days. There is no case law to back up our claims because it's not happened before.
The site will go down tomorrow. I will be turning it back on under grandmaheidi.com The new name you all gave to me. The grand kids call me grammy.
Thank you to David Weslow and Ari Meltzer of Wiley Rein for all of their hard work for us on this. They are amazing attorneys who treated us with immense respect even though we were not able to pay them. They kept us informed through each step which isn't how all attorneys work. We have experience in this now. David never left our side, did a lot of work writing briefings helping with the bankruptcy case and has been with us from the start of this thing to the bitter end. Thank you to Henry, DeGraaff & McCormick law firm, Jacob Degraaff and Christina Henry for stepping in with their hearts at the last minute trying to save this. These people care about justice and debtors rights. As far as I can tell debtors have none. This needs to change. No one should be able to take and sell your name. Your own name! Thank you to all the domain community that came forward to voice their concerns, Joseph Peterson for bringing this to your attention, all of the discussion and tweeting about the injustice of this mess, wrote stories and published on their websites John Colascione, Andrew Allemann, Angela St. Julian, Konstantinos Zournas, Ron Jackson at DN Journal, Raymond Hackney, (sorry if I missed anyone) and to those who also donated to our legal fund. We can’t thank you enough! What Angela St. Julien did by donating her ticket sales from DNHouston forever seals in my heart that there are good people in our world and they out weigh and have more meaning than the bad. Thank you Angela, you are a wonderful person! From our hearts we appreciate all of the support all of you have given us.
I wish I could have made a difference in this never happening again. Perhaps it did make a big enough impact that no one will ever “not claim” a domain name in a bankruptcy ever again. If you ever find yourself in that unfortunate position claim everything! List it all! It isn’t what you deem as property. The court said it didn’t matter if we thought it was property or not…we were suppose to list it as property. How crazy does that sound? List everything whether it’s property or not…because if someone wants it and they have enough money they will find a way to make it property. The page to list things on is not large enough to list it all. They generalize “furniture” “clothing”…etc. If I had a do over I would list every item separately…each piece of furniture and every pair of underwear, along with my toenails! There would be many pages and it would most likely irritate the people in charge but it would protect thy toenails!
I'm sorry that we didn't win it. Not just for my husband and myself but for the domain community.
