SmartText Corp. v. Interland, Inc.

296 F. Supp. 2d 1257, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22998, 2003 WL 22996743
CourtDistrict Court, D. Kansas
DecidedDecember 19, 2003
Docket03-2393-JWL
StatusPublished
Cited by24 cases

This text of 296 F. Supp. 2d 1257 (SmartText Corp. v. Interland, Inc.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. Kansas primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
SmartText Corp. v. Interland, Inc., 296 F. Supp. 2d 1257, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22998, 2003 WL 22996743 (D. Kan. 2003).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER

LUNGSTRUM, District Judge.

Plaintiff filed this diversity suit against defendants asserting claims of negligence, misrepresentation, breach of contract and deceptive practices in violation of the Kansas Consumer Protection Act, K.S.A. § 50-623 et seq. This matter is presently before the court on defendant Interland, Inc.’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs complaint and compel arbitration or, in the alternative, to transfer the case to the United States District Court for the Northern District of Georgia (doc. #3). As set forth in more detail below, defendant’s motion is retained under advisement until such time as a jury resolves the issue of whether an agreement to arbitrate was made. If the jury finds that no such agreement was made, then the court will deny defendant’s motion; if the jury finds that an agreement was made, then the court will grant defendant’s motion and will issue an order directing the parties to proceed to arbitration on all of plaintiffs claims, as explained more fully below. See 9 U.S.C. § 4.

I. Background

Plaintiff SmartText Corporation (“SmartText”) is in the business of selling proprietary business forms to a worldwide customer base. SmartText’s products are sold and distributed primarily over the Internet through SmartText’s two websites, vnuw.teneron.com and wmu.smarta-greements.com. The smartagreements.com website is the primary source of sales of products for SmartText as well as the primary means by which SmartText collects revenues and delivers software products to its customers. The teneron.com website was a portal website used by SmartText customers to access the software products available on the smarta-greements.com website.

Prior to December 2001, SmartText had an oral agreement with Interliant, Inc. (an entity that is unrelated to defendant Interland, Inc.), a web hosting company, whereby Interliant was paid a monthly fee to host SmartText’s two websites. In December 2001, defendant Interland purchased certain customer accounts of In-terliant, Inc., including the SmartText account. Thereafter, Interland decided to migrate the websites of the customers whose accounts Interland had purchased from Interliant servers located at the In-terliant data center to Interland servers located at Interland’s data center in At *1259 lanta, Georgia. Toward that end, in January 2002, Interland notified SmartText that Interland would be migrating the teneron.com website and the smartagree-ments.com website from the servers at Interliant to Interland’s servers.

According to plaintiff, it is the custom and practice in the web hosting industry to operate customer websites in parallel during a migration of customer websites so that the old website is not shut down until the new website has been tested and proven to be fully operational. Thus, Inter-land, in the course of migrating Smart-Text’s websites to Interland’s servers, was expected to prepare a new web site on its servers that was the mirror image of the current web site on Interliant’s servers. Interland would not begin hosting the new website until SmartText reviewed and approved the “mirror” website and only then would the website on Interliant’s servers be shut down. This approach ensures that the migration of any website to a new hosting company does not result in any “down time” for the website.

In early January 2002, Interland began the migration of SmartText’s teneron.com website. On January 7, 2002, Interland completed its preparation of the mirror website for teneron.com on Interland’s servers and sent an e-mail to Robert J. Sherwood, SmartText’s CEO, indicating that he should review the mirrored website and indicate whether the site was acceptable. When Interland did not hear back from Mr. Sherwood, it sent another e-mail message to him. The message stated:

Dear Robert Sherwood:
Welcome to Interland! We look forward to serving all of your Web needs.
Five days ago we sent you an e-mail message asking you to review your newly mirrored Web site, teneron.com, at the following link: 209.35.192.231.
Our records show that,you still have not visited the link to review your Web site. If we still have not heard from you within five more days, we will assume that the mirrored site is correct and redirect your domain to point to your site hosted at Interland. In this event you will be deemed to have accepted your new hosting plan and Interland’s Terms of Service.
If you do not find any issues with your Web site, please click the “Accept” button on the Web site review page located at http://216.25.10.13.customers/aecept. asp?ID=13460. By accepting your new site, you are accepting all the parameters of your new hosting solutions as well as Interland’s Terms of Service, which can be viewed at http://vjww.mter-land. com/interliantmapping.
If you discover issues with your Web site, please click the “Decline” button on the Web site review page. An Interland consultant will contact you within 24 hours to resolve your concerns.

In response to this e-mail, Mr. Sherwood clicked the “Decline” button on January 19, 2002. He subsequently contacted In-terland to discuss the problems with the mirrored website. '

According to Interland, it corrected the problems highlighted by Mr. Sherwood and then, on January 22, 2002, sent Mr. Sherwood another e-mail message asking him to review the corrected site and then accept or decline the site. Specifically, the e-mail stated, in pertinent part:

Dear Robert Sherwood:
Thank you for having taken the time to review your Web site, teneron.com, and submit the feedback on the areas that needed to be corrected. We have worked to resolve all the issues you originally encountered and ask ‘that you . carefully review your site one more time to ensure it is fully functional. You can access your site at: 209.35.192.231.
*1260 If your Web site is functioning properly, please click the “Accept” button on the Web site review page located at http://216.25.10.13.customers/accept. asp?ID=13460. By accepting your new site, you are accepting all the parameters of your new hosting solutions as well as Interland’s Terms of Service, which can be viewed at http://www.mter-land. com/interliantmapping.
If your Web site requires further revisions, please click the “Decline” button on the Web site review page. An Inter-land consultant will contact you within 24 hours to resolve your concerns.
Please note, at this time your site visitors are still being directed to your existing Web site in the Interliant data center. Visitors will not be directed to your new Web site until you acknowledge that it is operating correctly via the method outlined above.

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Bluebook (online)
296 F. Supp. 2d 1257, 2003 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22998, 2003 WL 22996743, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/smarttext-corp-v-interland-inc-ksd-2003.