Garden of Life, Inc. v. Letzer

318 F. Supp. 2d 946, 2004 WL 1151593, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8283
CourtDistrict Court, C.D. California
DecidedMay 10, 2004
Docket04-2619AHM(MANx)
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 318 F. Supp. 2d 946 (Garden of Life, Inc. v. Letzer) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, C.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Garden of Life, Inc. v. Letzer, 318 F. Supp. 2d 946, 2004 WL 1151593, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8283 (C.D. Cal. 2004).

Opinion

ORDER GRANTING PLAINTIFF’S MOTION FOR A PRELIMINARY INJUNCTION

MATZ, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court on Plaintiffs motion for a preliminary injunction. For the reasons- that follow, the Court grants Plaintiffs motion.

FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND

Garden of Life, Inc. (“Plaintiff’) is a “health and wellness” company that sells whole food nutritional supplements and disseminates publications about health, nutrition, fitness and diet. Plaintiff was incorporated in Florida in May 2000 by Jordan Rubin, the author of the holistic health book and New York Times bestseller “The Maker’s Diet.” Plaintiff sells its nutritional supplements primarily at health foods stores, in mail-order catalogues, through health care practitioners, through authorized internet distributors and on its own website, vnvw.gardenoflifeusa.com. Plaintiff launched this website on May 4, 2001.

Plaintiff owns several trademarks related to its name, including the “Garden of Life” mark for dietary food supplements (registered on January 29, 2002), the “Garden of Life” logo and words for dietary food supplements (registered on April 29, 2003), and the “Garden of Life Extra Virgin Coconut Oil” mark (registered on February 17, 2004). See Burger Decl., Exh. 2. On December 2, 2003, Plaintiff filed a trademark application for registration of the “Garden of Life” mark in connection with the provision of information in the fields of health, nutrition, fitness and diet. Id.

Defendants are Barry and Sally Letzer (“the Letzers” or “Defendants”), a married couple. In July 1995, Sally Letzer incorporated a different company named Garden of Life, Inc. in Washington state. According to two Washington state License Renewal & Annual Reports signed by Sally Letzer, as of July 31, 2001 Garden of Life, Inc. had never conducted any business or earned any revenue. See Golin-veaux Decl, Exhs. 10, 11. The Letzers appear to be the owners of Garden of Life, LLC, a Nevada corporation incorporated on April 1, 2004, and they do not challenge that assumption. Garden of Life LLC is also a defendant in this action.

On April 22, 1997, the Letzers registered the domain name www.gardeno-flife.com. On November 12, 2002, Sally Letzer registered the trademark “Garden of Life Lessons” for “educational and entertainment services” relating to “understanding the importance of developing tools for living from the vantage point of merging the skills of intuitionism with the skill of mastering day to day real life issues and on the subject of thereby being aware of and articulating a stated desire, and on the subject to creating a design to enact that desire and implementing a delivery system that delivers one’s stated *953 desire...” Id., Exh. 12. On April 11, 2004, the Letzers filed an application for the “Garden of Life” trademark in International Classes 21 and 44. 1

The facts giving rise to this dispute began in November 2000 when Plaintiff became aware that the Letzers owned the domain name www.gardenoflife.com and offered to purchase it from them. Plaintiff and the Letzers engaged in sporadic negotiations over the next few years. On December 1, 2003, an attorney for the Let-zers offered to sell the domain name to Plaintiff for $3,920,000. On December 20, 2003, Plaintiff made a counteroffer of $25,000. 2 Thereafter, negotiations broke down.

During November — December, 2003, while Plaintiff and the Letzers were negotiating for the domain name vnmu.gardeno-fi%fe.com, the Letzers registered at least 33 additional domain names that contained variations on the phrases “Garden of Life” and “Garden of Life USA.” 3 Although some of these websites were inactive and merely posted “under construction” signs, other sites redirected traffic to either other websites (incorporating the phrase “Garden of Life”) owned by the Letzers, or to a website owned by the Letzers that contained links to websites owned by third parties who paid the Letzers a referral fee for each web-user who clicked on the link. In addition, at some point in time between November 2003 and April 2004, the Let-zers registered an additional 48 domain names incorporating the phrases “Garden of Life” and “the Maker’s Diet.” 4 At the hearing on this motion, counsel for Defendants represented that the Letzers own a total of 75 domain names that incorporate the phrase “Garden of Life” or “The Maker’s Diet.” Many of these domain names, including www.gardenoflife.com. were formally registered to “b aware nation,” a business entity owned by the Letzers.

The most contested of the Letzers’ 75 domain names is www.gardenofiife.com. Between 1997 (when the Letzers registered the domain name) and February 2004, no active website existed at the address. The website simply posted an “under construction” sign. See Golinveaux Decl. ¶ 13. However, in February 2004, two months after Plaintiff made its $25,000 counteroffer, the Letzers launched an active website that prominently displayed the name “Garden of Life” and explained that Garden of Life was a company “Providing Wholistic Living and Vibrant Health through the Newly Centered Principles and Technologies of Balanced Wellness SINCE 1974.” See Stone Decl., Exh. 3. The website also contained a message board on which readers could post messages and ask for advice. Id., Exh. 2. At the end of March 2004, the Letzers removed the message board.

*954 On April 4, 2004 (three days after incorporating Garden of Life LLC), the Letzers changed the registration information for wvnv.gardenoflife.com and for 14 of their other domain names containing the phrase “Garden of Life.” The Letzers changed the owner of these domain names from “b aware nation” to Garden of Life LLC. See Golinveaux Decl., Exhs. 6, 15.

On April 7, 2004, the Letzers redesigned their mvw.gardenoflife.com website. See Stone Decl. ¶ 3. The new website retained the title “Garden of Life” and referred to itself as “[T]he Real and True Garden of Life.” See Stone Decl, Exh. 3. The website also contained a prominent banner ad which featured photographs of Garden of Life nutritional supplements {i.e., Plaintiffs products) and links to third party websites that sold those products. Id. Also below the advertisement were links to the websites: www.christ-diets.com and www.fakersdiet.net.

The redesigned website also contained article headings linked to articles on a variety of topics. One heading read: “Who’s the Real ‘MAKER’ of these ‘Diets of Deception’?” A second heading read: “What’s in those Supplements Anyway. Do you really know what’s even in all those different vitamins and supplements you take? Have you ever heard of the Ancient Ingredient, PURE PROFIT?..

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Bluebook (online)
318 F. Supp. 2d 946, 2004 WL 1151593, 2004 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8283, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/garden-of-life-inc-v-letzer-cacd-2004.