Summary

  • The Ninth Circuit held that domain names are intangible property subject to a writ of execution under California law and, for this judgment-enforcement purpose, are located where the registry is located.
  • The names did not move because a private claimant demanded them or because a registrar failed. A registered judgment, state execution law and a court-appointed receiver supplied the authority; registrar instructions and the registry database supplied the operational path.

The debt and the unrelated names

Office Depot obtained a federal judgment against John Zuccarini in December 2000 under the Anticybersquatting Consumer Protection Act. The judgment arose from his registration of officdepot.com. Office Depot could not collect and eventually assigned the judgment to DS Holdings.

The assets later targeted were different domain names. After registering the judgment in the Northern District of California, DS Holdings obtained a preservation order and conducted discovery. The Ninth Circuit’s opinion records more than 248 names registered with VeriSign, including more than 190 .com names. DS Holdings sought to levy selected .com names to satisfy the existing money judgment.

That sequence keeps allegation, judgment and execution apart. The ACPA liability had already been reduced to judgment. The appeal did not retry the cybersquatting case, and the targeted names were not the names that produced the judgment. The live question was whether those other assets could be reached in Northern California.

Why a turnover order failed but a receiver survived

DS Holdings first asked the district court to compel third-party registrars to transfer ownership directly. The court refused, reading California’s turnover rule as unable to command third parties in that way. The creditor then asked for a receiver who would obtain and sell the names and apply the proceeds to the judgment. The district court granted that request.

Zuccarini appealed. He argued that Northern California was not a proper place to levy the names and that the receiver appointment therefore lacked a valid territorial foundation. DS Holdings did not claim ordinary personal jurisdiction over him there. It relied on quasi in rem jurisdiction: authority over property said to be located in the district.

The Ninth Circuit affirmed. California Code of Civil Procedure section 695.010 generally subjects a judgment debtor’s property to enforcement. Section 708.620 allows a court to appoint a receiver when that is a reasonable method for fair and orderly satisfaction of the judgment, taking both creditor and debtor interests into account. Section 699.510 directs a writ to the county where the levy will be made. Together, those rules made location decisive.

A legal situs built for one purpose

The court held first that domain names are intangible property subject to a writ of execution under California law. It relied on its earlier decision in Kremen v Cohen, while distinguishing a California turnover case that required property to be taken into custody. That custody language did not appear in the receivership provision.

The harder question was where the intangible property sat. The court called situs for intangibles a legal fiction and said the answer must be context-specific. It looked to the ACPA’s rule allowing an in rem action where the registrar, registry or other assigning authority is located. The execution proceeding was not itself an ACPA in rem action, so the statute was persuasive rather than controlling.

Practical control completed the analysis. Registrars take instructions from registrants and send changes to the registry. The registry maintains the definitive database for its top-level domain. Requiring a creditor to pursue many registrars in several countries would fragment execution, while the .com registry provided one operational point. The court therefore held that, for this quasi in rem execution purpose, the names were located where the registry was located. It added that they might also be located where a relevant registrar was located, but that issue was not directly before it.

What the decision did not decide

The receiver did not become an owner by private assertion. The appointment was an aid to execution after a valid judgment, with judicial supervision and an obligation to use the assets or sale proceeds as ordered. The registrar and registry did not adjudicate the debt; they were parts of the control chain by which a court order could become an operational change.

Nor did the court announce one permanent physical home for every domain name. Its situs analysis was expressly functional. Tax, venue, attachment and other questions can locate the same intangible interest differently. The holding therefore does not establish that every .com dispute belongs in the registry’s home district, or that registry location can replace notice, jurisdiction, a judgment and a lawful execution remedy.

The opinion also provides no rule for IPv4 addresses, IPv6 addresses or autonomous system numbers. Those resources sit in different institutional and contractual systems. Treating the domain-name holding as a shortcut to seize number resources would erase the very context the court said mattered.

Sources