Marten Transport Ltd. v. Plattform Advertising, Inc.

184 F.Supp. 3d 1006 (2016)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

P, a trucking company, alleges that D used P's name and trademarks without authorization on websites on which P advertised truck driver jobs. P designated two expert witnesses to testify in this case at trial. Ronald Fischer is a computer consultant with experience in computer forensics and data recovery. Fischer identified various dates on which P's information appeared on four internet websites operated by D. The report also includes screenshots of the sites on those dates. Fischer used the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, a searchable website that archives internet sites at various points in time as captured by web crawlers. The opinions in Fischer's report appear limited to his opinions that P's information appeared on D's sites on particular dates. Richard Follis is a consultant with experience in the transportation industry, including experience recruiting truck drivers. Follis' report contains opinions relating to the following: turnover of drivers in the trucking industry; costs of hiring drivers; lost revenues for empty trucks; a shortage of drivers in the industry; advertising by carriers for drivers, including online advertising; search engine optimization; and the relationship between a carrier and its advertising agency. D objects to the use of the search engine optimization opinions in Follis’ report.