LAKEPORT — Standing outside the courtroom Monday morning, BoardStock creator and promoter Rob Stimmel said he was disappointed by the court”s decision to deny his request for a show-stopping injunction on Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa”s X.S. Labor Day Weekend.
Stimmel”s Santa Rosa attorney Dan Beck cited reasons of hardship created by the late cancellation of his client”s event and what he called an unfair advantage the resort would have in promoting events similar to those at BoardStock.
Presiding Judge Golden said he would be “severely limited” in his consideration of the case because documentation from Beck apparently did not include language required in a preliminary injunction.
“This is a classic case of David and Goliath with … Goliath stealing the trademark, the events and the promotion that was known as BoardStock,” said Beck in his opening remarks. “A preliminary injunction is the slingshot that”s needed to halt this from happening,” Beck continued.
He argued that specifically Konocti Harbor”s extreme motocross, hardcore skydiving, jet ski stunt and Hawaiian Tropic Model Search events were trademark BoardStock events, and that allowing Konocti Harbor to go ahead with them in its X.S. Labor Day Weekend would create an unfair advantage for the resort.
Because of the cancellation, the event lost its mid-August slot and was prevented from operating in its usual manner. “Essentially what”s happened is that BoardStock has been prevented as a business from continuing in its essential form because what Konocti did is stole the … BoardStock event ? which was usually held around the middle of August ? and combined it with its Labor Day weekend event, essentially taking the events that had traditionally been held with BoardStock and moved it to the weekend, calling it ?bigger, badder, better.””
He cited materials showing pictures taken during previous events being used to promote the Labor Day weekend event, slated to begin Friday night.
Michael Senneff, an attorney with the Santa Rosa law firm Senneff, Freeman and Bluestone, LLP. Senneff is the principal on the case defending Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa and all other defendants involved in the civil suit, which includes Greg Bennett, who is president and general manager of both Konocti Harbor Resort & Spa and of its events promotion company Konocti Presents …
Senneff argued that the Labor Day weekend, while not called “X.S.” before, is in its 11th year, and that BoardStock had been only one component for two years.
He also argued that an injunction was not appropriate for an oral contract, which Stimmel claimed was broken when he learned the resort wouldn”t be hosting his event earlier this year.
One point the judge wanted to be clear on was that of a written contract preventing BoardStock”s events from happening without it for a period that was just up as of Aug. 20.
Stimmel said they intend to pursue the $300,000 Stimmel cites for damages in his complaint.
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