A SAD Scheme Plaintiff Unsuccessfully Plays an IP Privilege Card–Price v. Schedule A Defendants

All SAD Scheme cases are, by definition, sad. This case achieves even greater depths: it’s Flori-dumb level SAD.

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The plaintiff, Price, has a trademark registration in the phrase “White Privilege Card,” for novelty plastic identification cards. Ugh. His lawsuit names 102 defendants and “follows the mold of thousands like it that have appeared in the last few decades,” including, as usual, getting an ex parte TRO. However, the case falls apart when he requests a preliminary injunction.

The court says the case “presents difficult merits and procedural questions regarding due process and joinder….[and] presses the bounds of the judiciary’s equitable powers.” In fact, it’s pretty easy to spot the many, many flaws in this case. The opinion contains 37 pages of withering critiques that would make many lawyers cry if a judge expressed these concerns about their work. For example, the court says:

• “At the time that Price moved for a temporary restraining order, Price provided no legal names of the sellers.” [I guess precisely identifying defendants is now optional to getting a TRO?]
• “Price did allege irreparable harm in his affidavit, but only in general terms without differentiation between the over 100 sellers’ products or the sellers’ likelihood of evading judicial action.”
• “Absent from the preliminary injunction motion and the properly attached papers upon which it relies is any description or a visual depiction of Price’s own products or how the Mark appears in context….Without evidence in the record of Price’s Mark as consumers encounter it, the Court cannot assess its similarity with the screenshots of the allegedly infringing products displayed in Schedule B.” [Schedule B was 150 pages of poorly organized screenshots of the defendants’ products. Filed under seal, naturally.]
• “Price fails to provide evidence of how the Mark appears in context, making it impossible to assess whether the defendants’ marks are identical or similar to Price’s Mark or otherwise evaluate consumer confusion. Even if Price had properly submitted evidence of his Mark, his arguments about the similarity of the sellers’ products are too generalized, and Price presents no evidence of the strength of his Mark or the market more broadly. Indeed, several allegedly infringing products bear no resemblance to the description of Price’s Mark.”
• “Price did not offer a single example of consumer confusion or specify any product or defendant in particular.” Later, the court says “Price’s allegations of similarity against at least four of the sellers’ products fail on their face, as the cards are distinct from Price’s Mark.”
• “While many other products appear identical or nearly identical to the card displayed at the hearing (at least based on the screenshots, as no tangible products were introduced) and Price might ultimately succeed against some of those sellers, Price offers no specific argument about any of them in his motion, nor any evidence concerning the customer base, advertising, sellers’ intent, actual consumer confusion, or consumer sophistication. While “[t]here are no hard and fast rules as to how much evidence of confusion is enough,” surely this is not enough.”
• “Price’s conclusory allegation that he and the sellers operate in the same geographic areas is hardly enough to satisfy Rule 8.”
• “absent from the record is any evidence of actual confusion or argument about consumer sophistication—let alone analysis of any specific infringing product.”
• “the alleged similarity (based on the screenshots) proves little more than that it is seemingly easy to make and market the cards. That may very well be true, but it does not mean that joinder is proper under Rule 20.”
• “Price alleged that the defendant sellers use third-party marketplaces to sell infringing goods. Price never alleged that the nonparties were aiding and abetting the infringement or otherwise acting in concert with the sellers under Rule 65(d)(2)(C)….at the time that the temporary restraining order was entered, Price failed to prove that the Court had authority to direct a nonparty financial institution or marketplace to halt the movement of funds in an account when that nonparty did not know about the infringement.”
• “Price does not explain or provide evidence why preliminary relief of this scope—a total asset freeze of every defendant—is necessary to secure a later equitable remedy from any particular defendant.”
• “unlike other Schedule A litigation, many of the defendants according to Price’s amended complaint are based in the United States, mitigating one of the barriers that Pricer [sic] earlier alleged might prevent later recovery. Given this and Price’s failure to offer any specific justification for freezing the assets of any particular defendant, granting an asset freeze would go against the very purpose of equity.” [Note: anyone who tries to normalize the SAD Scheme by saying it only targets foreign defendants can stuff it.]
• “not all of the defendants have received notice of the motion for a preliminary injunction, and, even for those that Price has noticed under Rule 65, Price has not proven service of process of the underlying complaint for any seller. That creates one-sided briefing, which “renders balancing the private interests impossible.” Moreover, the vagueness of the complaint cautions against an award of a preliminary injunction, particularly because an asset freeze is a powerful remedy. With such a dearth of information and lack of specificity, “there is significant doubt that the Schedule A mechanism serves the public interest” in its present form.”

To me, it feels like the lawyers expected to get their wishlist granted just by showing up in court. Maybe they thought their IP privilege card was a get-out-of-lawyering-free card…?

The court summarizes its conclusions:

Because of procedural irregularities, due process problems, and the absence of evidence to support a substantial likelihood of success on the merits, I vacate the temporary restraining order, deny the motion for a preliminary injunction, and dismiss the amended complaint as to all defendants but Cone

[Cone has brought counterclaims against Price, pointing out she uses cardstock and not plastic and began selling her items 3 years before Price got started.]

Good for the court for bouncing this crap lawsuit now. AND YET….the lawyers wreaked some havoc with the court-approved TRO:

Price reported settlements with approximately twenty-three sellers and separately filed notices of voluntary dismissal of his claims against another nineteen. Four sellers responded to the preliminary injunction motion, and Price settled or voluntarily dismissed his claims against all but one of them.

This sounds bad, so how do you think the court addressed these problems? Did the court…

• sanction Price for getting an unmerited TRO;
• provide relief to the online marketplaces who had to contend with a TRO that never should have applied to them; [Note: “Price represented at the February 4 hearing that the freezes remain in place despite the expiration of the temporary restraining order.” Continued post-TRO restrictions are typical. It’s a good reminder of how the SAD Scheme impacts defendants outside the court’s purview.]
• dismiss the remaining defendants with prejudice; [the court did dismiss the defendants….without prejudice FFS]
• provide recourse for the 23 settlements that were triggered by the unmerited TRO;
• compensate the seller-defendants who spent their time and money to respond to the obviously defective PI motion; or
• flag the lawyers’ numerous and obvious failings for potential license discipline?

Nope. None of the above. This is a SAD Scheme case–a genre where judges rarely impose even a trivial amount of accountability. 👌

While it’s easy to mock the terrible work by these lawyers, to me, they are a symptom of the disease. The SAD Scheme only works when lawyers bend the law and facts to reach undeserved outcomes. The SAD Scheme is rigged in such a way that it categorically encourages bad lawyering. Hate the players AND the game.

Case Citation: Price v. Schedule A Defendants, 2026 WL 470599 (M.D. Fla. Feb. 19, 2026). The court’s TRO. The court’s order to show cause regarding joinder.

Personnel note: the plaintiff’s lawyers are Terry Marcus Sanks and Liandra Izquierdo of Beusse Sanks, PLLC, Orlando, FL.