Schedule A Plaintiffs Keep Losing, and Courts Are Finally Making Them Pay for It

If you sell products online and you have ever woken up to find your marketplace account frozen because some company in Chicago filed a lawsuit naming you alongside a hundred strangers, you already know what Schedule A litigation is. If you have not had that experience, keep reading. The landscape is shifting, and the recent cases are worth understanding whether you are a rights holder trying to protect your brand or a seller who has been swept up in one of these suits.

I will say at the outset: I handle Schedule A cases on both sides. I represent rights holders who have legitimate infringement claims and need to stop counterfeiters. The Schedule A mechanism can be used, correctly and fairly, to effectuate more efficient relief. But, I also represent sellers who have been dragged into these lawsuits on thin evidence and even thinner procedure. I know what a well-run Schedule A case looks like, and I know what an abusive one looks like. Some cases coming out in 2026 are making the distinction clearer than ever.

A quick primer for those who are new to this. Schedule A litigation involves a plaintiff filing a single lawsuit in the Northern District of Illinois against dozens or hundreds of online sellers accused of intellectual property infringement. The defendants are not named in the caption. They are listed on a schedule attached to the complaint. The plaintiff then seeks an ex parte temporary restraining order, asking the court to freeze the defendants' marketplace accounts and funds before those defendants even know they have been sued. Most defendants settle quickly because they cannot afford to fight. That is how the system works by design.

Academic commentators, most prominently Professor Eric Goldman at Santa Clara University School of Law and Professor Sarah Fackrell at the Chicago-Kent College of Law, have dubbed this the "SAD Scheme," which stands for Schedule A Defendants Scheme. I will be honest: I find the moniker a bit too cute. But the substance of their criticism, published in a widely cited Columbia Law Review article and in Goldman's Technology & Marketing Law Blog, is largely on point. The system has been abused. And courts are finally doing something about it.

Shenzhen Langmi: A Plaintiff Gets Told to Pay Up

In Shenzhen Langmi Technology Co., Ltd. v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A, Case No. 1:2025-cv-01966 (N.D. Ill.), a Chinese company filed a copyright infringement lawsuit following the standard playbook. It initially named 36 defendants and eventually whittled that number down to eight.

The filing itself was unremarkable. What happened next was not. The court determined that the plaintiff had improperly obtained a TRO that froze defendants' assets. When the case fell apart, the court did not let the plaintiff walk away clean. It ordered the plaintiff to compensate the defendants for the harm the asset freeze caused.

That matters. In the typical Schedule A case, the plaintiff obtains a TRO, the defendants' marketplace accounts get frozen, the defendants settle for whatever amount will make the problem go away, and the plaintiff moves on to the next batch of targets. Defendants whose assets are frozen rarely get anything back, even when the plaintiff's claims turn out to be weak or are voluntarily dismissed. The Shenzhen Langmi ruling changes the math. If plaintiffs face actual financial consequences for obtaining improper TROs, they have a reason to think harder about whether their evidence actually justifies one before they file.

This is the kind of accountability that has been missing. And for those of us who file Schedule A cases on behalf of rights holders, it is a healthy development. It rewards careful, well-supported filings and punishes sloppy ones. That is how litigation is supposed to work.

Emojico Loses an Unopposed TRO in New York

Over in the Southern District of New York, Emoji Co. GmbH learned that Schedule A tactics do not travel well.

Emojico has spent years trying to assert trademark rights over the word "emoji." In its latest attempt, it filed against 125 defendants and sought an ex parte TRO. The court denied it. An ex parte TRO means no one is there to argue against it. The court still said no.

The judge ordered Emojico to show cause why all defendants except the first-named one should not be dismissed for misjoinder. Emojico was represented by Marijan Stephan Hucke of Hucke & Sanker PLLC. The change in counsel from the firm that had previously handled its cases did not change the result.

Greer Burns Sanctioned for Judge-Shopping

In January, Judge Blakey in the Northern District of Illinois sanctioned the Greer Burns & Crain law firm for what the court called "willfully abusive" and "egregious" judge-shopping.

In Marshall Amplification PLC v. Xingrunshangmao, Case No. 1:25-cv-13829 (N.D. Ill. Jan. 12, 2026), the court found that the firm had repeatedly filed new cases naming the same defendants until the case landed before a judge it believed would be sympathetic. The plaintiff had already conceded, twice before Judge Alexakis and once before Judge Chang, that the defendants could not properly be joined. The firm kept filing anyway.

Judge Blakey imposed sanctions. The ruling puts every firm on notice that treating the Northern District's random case assignment system as a slot machine will have consequences. That said, Judge Kness actively invites re-filing, which begs the question: Is it judge shopping in that situation?

The trajectory is clear. Courts are losing patience.

Price v. Schedule A Defendants: No Hiding Behind Privilege

Earlier this year, in Price v. Schedule A Defendants, a plaintiff tried to shield its litigation mechanics from judicial scrutiny by claiming attorney-client privilege and work product protection over how it identified, investigated, and selected its defendants.

The court rejected the argument. How a plaintiff builds its defendant list is not privileged legal strategy. It is the factual foundation of the lawsuit, and courts have every right to examine it. This matters because opacity has been one of the primary tools Schedule A plaintiffs have used to avoid accountability. If a court cannot ask how defendants ended up on the schedule, it cannot assess whether joinder is proper, whether the factual allegations supporting the claims are real, or whether the entire exercise is designed to generate settlements rather than vindicate intellectual property rights.

What This Means If You Are on Either Side

The judicial pushback is not happening in isolation. Academics are framing up issues from an outsider’s lens. Some defense attorneys (like yours truly) are not just settling out every case. And a framework is being devloped to provide the vocabulary to articulate what judges have surely been thinking.

The Northern District of Illinois remains the epicenter of Schedule A litigation, but as the Emojico case shows, these filings have spread to other districts. The inconsistencies in how courts handle them are becoming more visible. Some judges permit the joinder of hundreds of unrelated defendants. Others refuse. Some grant ex parte TROs routinely. Others demand real evidence. That lack of uniformity is what makes judge-shopping so tempting, and it is what makes the Marshall Amplification sanctions so important.

I am glad to see courts reining this in. Not because Schedule A litigation is inherently illegitimate. It is not. I file these cases for clients who have real infringement problems and need real relief. Online counterfeiting is a serious issue, and the Schedule A mechanism, when used properly, is an effective tool for addressing it. Unlike some, I am a proponent for electronic service of process. That said, when I said "when used properly,” that is doing a lot of work in that sentence. In my opinion, too many firms have treated these cases as a volume business, filing hundreds of defendants on thin evidence and relying on the TRO process to generate settlements. That approach undermines the credibility of every rights holder who has a legitimate claim.

If you are a rights holder dealing with counterfeiting on online marketplaces, we can help you pursue enforcement the right way, with solid evidence, proper joinder, and filings that will hold up under the kind of judicial scrutiny that these cases are now attracting. My team and I know how to build these cases because we have done it, and we know what courts expect because we have been on the other side of the docket too. And if you are a seller who has been named in one of these suits, do not panic and do not settle before talking to someone who understands the current state of the law. The leverage has shifted, and the cases coming down in 2026 make that clear.

Jonathan L.A. Phillips is a founder of Phillips & Bathke, P.C. and handles Schedule A cases for each side and often engages in co-counsel relationships to be the person “on the ground” in the Northern District of Illinois.