Deckers v. Litfun: Schedule A Default Judgment Unwound Over Email Service
Last updated October 20, 2026. Decision date: September 14, 2026.
A Northern District of Illinois judge has unwound a default judgment that UGG owner Deckers Outdoor Corp. won against a Chinese seller, holding that Deckers did not do enough to verify the seller's mailing address before asking for permission to serve it by email. The decision in Deckers Outdoor Corp. v. Litfun, No. 1:25-cv-10080, applies the Seventh Circuit's 2026 decision in Kangol v. Hangzhou Silk and raises the cost of the email-service shortcut that Schedule A plaintiffs have relied on for years.
The short version: a few map searches that come up empty are not reasonable diligence. If the plaintiff cannot show it tried to tie a real address to the defendant, email service is not available, and a default judgment built on it is vulnerable.
What happened in Deckers v. Litfun?
Deckers, which owns the UGG brand, sued 30 defendants in a Schedule A case. The court authorized service by email, and Deckers obtained default judgments against 18 of the defendants.
Litfun was one of them. It appeared after the fact and moved to unwind its default judgment, arguing among other things that service was improper under Kangol v. Hangzhou Silk. As the decision is described, Kangol limits email service on Chinese defendants to situations where the defendant's address is unknown.
Why was email service improper in Deckers v. Litfun?
The Northern District of Illinois held that "Deckers failed to make reasonably diligent efforts to ascertain and verify Litfun's mailing address before seeking email service." The problem was what Deckers did, and what it left undone.
Deckers claimed it searched for the address tied to Litfun's Amazon account on Google Maps, Baidu Maps, and Bing Maps. It also searched for the address connected to an earlier suit against a Walmart store that used the LITFUN seller alias. Counsel's declaration said the searches did not locate the addresses "and/or" the defendant. Litfun conceded that it had not registered its address on those platforms, but pointed out that two well-known Chinese databases list its correct address and company name.
The court found no authority treating three failed search-engine lookups as reasonable diligence, particularly where the address could be verified elsewhere. It also addressed the opposite situation: some of Deckers' screenshots showed buildings at the searched addresses. When an investigation turns up a physical address, the court said, reasonable diligence requires further steps to connect that address to the defendant.
The court said Deckers needed to take "meaningful steps to verify defendant's address" before moving for email service, and suggested two examples: consulting specialized corporate databases or sending a representative to the address. The opinion leaves unclear whether Deckers made any of those efforts before it asked for email service.
Did the court sanction Deckers for judge-shopping?
Litfun also argued that Deckers "pinches" defendants out of cases to shop for judges (a term no doubt lifted from Professor Sarah Fackrell's scholarship). The Northern District of Illinois declined to impose sanctions on Deckers, finding that Deckers' earlier dismissals were not in bad faith and noting that refiling against defendants a prior judge found misjoined is not improper in itself. Terminating sanctions were off the table.
The court still sent a warning. It said the ruling "does not mean that plaintiff should be entitled to drop a defendant from a complaint over and over again without consequence." It added that dismissing defendants by filing a new complaint under Rule 15(a), instead of using a Rule 41 notice, exposes a gap in the rules that the court's inherent authority must police.
What should Schedule A defendants and plaintiffs do now?
For defendants, a default judgment obtained through email service is worth a second look. Check what the plaintiff said it did to find your address. If it ran a few map searches and stopped, and your correct address appears in a corporate registry or other database, a motion to unwind the judgment has a footing it did not have before Deckers. Be ready to show where your real address and company name can be found, and move promptly.
For plaintiffs, the lesson is to build the diligence record before asking for email service, and to make it defendant-specific. Searches on Google, Baidu, and Bing Maps will not carry the day alone. Consult corporate databases, follow up on any physical address an investigation produces so it is tied to the defendant, and put the steps taken in the declaration in plain terms rather than "and/or" language. Plaintiffs should also avoid repeated dismissals and refilings of the same defendant, given the court's caution about Rule 15(a) and the court's inherent authority.
The larger point, as Professor Goldman frames it, is candor in ex parte proceedings. Defendants are usually absent when email service is authorized, so judges are the only check on what plaintiffs say they did. If other judges follow this approach, email service on Chinese defendants in Schedule A cases may be harder to obtain.
Conclusion
Deckers v. Litfun does not end Schedule A practice, and Deckers may still try other service methods if the time for service has not run. But the decision puts a concrete price on email service: verified, defendant-specific diligence about where the defendant actually is. Plaintiffs who skip it risk losing the judgment, and defendants who were defaulted on a thin record now have a clearer argument.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Schedule A case?
A Schedule A case is a single federal lawsuit, commonly filed in the Northern District of Illinois, in which a brand owner sues many online sellers listed on an attached "Schedule A" for counterfeiting or infringement. Plaintiffs typically ask for early relief and for permission to serve the defendants by email. Some, led by Professor Eric Goldman, refer to these as "SAD Scheme" cases. I don’t.
When can a plaintiff serve a Chinese defendant by email after Kangol?
As the Deckers v. Litfun decision describes Kangol v. Hangzhou Silk, email service on a Chinese defendant is limited to situations where the defendant's address is unknown. Deckers adds that a plaintiff must first make reasonably diligent efforts to find and verify that address.
How can a defendant challenge a Schedule A default judgment?
Litfun appeared after the default judgment was entered and moved to unwind it, arguing that service was improper under Kangol. The Northern District of Illinois agreed that Deckers had not done enough to verify Litfun's address before seeking email service.
What diligence should a plaintiff document before asking for email service?
The court said a plaintiff must take meaningful steps to verify the defendant's address, and suggested consulting specialized corporate databases or sending a representative to the address. Map searches that return nothing, or that show a building without connecting it to the defendant, were not enough.
Opinion
Jonathan Phillips is an attorney at Brown, Hay & Stephens, LLP in Peoria, Illinois. He litigates intellectual property cases, including Schedule A cases on both the plaintiff and defense sides. Contact: (309) 643-6518, jphillips@bhslaw.com.
This article is for general information and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship.