IP Law Daily, COPYRIGHT—N.D. Ill.: Six defendants dismissed for improper joinder in luxury goods copyright, trademark suit, (May 20, 2026)

By Jonathan Anderson

Plaintiff cannot satisfy the joinder requirement merely by alleging that defendants infringed the same patent or trademark or engaged in infringement the same way.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois dismissed six defendants from a copyright and trademark infringement suit for improper joinder. The court found that the plaintiff, a luxury brand retailer, failed to establish that its claims against the dismissed defendants arose from the same transaction or occurrence as its claims against other remaining defendants. The court further wrote that the plaintiff cannot satisfy the joinder requirement merely by alleging that defendants infringed the same patent or trademark or engaged in infringement the same way. The Court said the dismissed defendants can be joined in a separate action (Chrome Hearts LLC v. The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A, No. 1:26-cv-00497 (N.D. Ill. May 18, 2026)).

Background. Plaintiff, Chrome Hearts LLC, a luxury retail brand, sued 92 e-commerce companies alleging trademark and copyright infringement, counterfeiting, and false designation of origin. After the Court issued a preliminary injunction, six of the Defendants moved to dismiss the claims against them for improper joinder or, alternatively, to sever. The movants (collectively, the Moving Defendants) asserted that they are a discrete group of co-owned entities with no relationship to the other Defendants. As such, the Moving Defendants argued they were improperly joined with the other Defendants. The Moving Defendants are CYGG Jewelry, JUYANG Jewelry, LCYZ Jewelry, Radiant Jewelry Trade, WLCL Jewelry, and ZRRS Jewelry. Before the motion to dismiss was fully briefed, the court entered a default judgment order against all Defendants other than Moving Defendants (the Defaulted Defendants) and three Defendants who were later dismissed from the case.

Legal standard. Under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 20, a plaintiff may join two or more defendants in a single action when two conditions are met. First, the claims against the defendants must be asserted “with respect to or arising out of the same transaction, occurrence, or series of transactions or occurrences.” Second, there must exist a “question of law or fact common to all defendants.” Fed. R. Civ. P. 20(a)(2). Plaintiffs have the burden of establishing proper joinder. A district judge has discretion when applying Rule 20. If a court finds that joinder is improper, the court may sever parties on its own, direct the plaintiff to remedy the issue, or dismiss the improperly joined parties from the action. Severance is more appropriate than dismissal if dismissal would result in “gratuitous injury to the plaintiff.” Mansoori v. Patel, 2022 WL 683667, at *2 (N.D. Ill. Mar. 8, 2022) (citing Elmore v. Henderson, 227 F.3d 1009, 1012 (7th Cir. 2000)).

Analysis. The Court found that Chrome Hearts failed to establish that its claims against the Moving Defendants arise from the same transaction or occurrence as its claims against the other Defendants. Chrome Hearts failed to establish a logical relationship between Moving Defendants and the Defaulted Defendants: Moving Defendants denied any corporate relationship or connection with the Defaulted Defendants, and Chrome Hearts did not offer any evidence to counter this claim. The court observed that the Plaintiff cannot satisfy the joinder requirement merely by alleging that Defendants infringed the same patent or trademark or engaged in infringement the same way.

Chrome Hearts raised several arguments that the court rejected. First, Chrome Hearts argued that all Defendants regularly register or acquire new aliases to conceal their identities and avoid enforcement, operate under the same payment accounts, and communicate with each other on chat rooms and websites to share infringement and evasion tactics. Moving Defendants denied these allegations, and Chrome Hearts offered no counter evidence. The court concluded that even if such allegations were plausible, they would not support joinder.

Next, Chrome Hearts argued that misjoinder is not a ground for dismissal and cannot be raised by a motion to dismiss. But the court cited Seventh Circuit precedent permitting a court to dismiss defendants without prejudice should the court find they were not properly joined. Chrome Hearts also argued that Moving Defendants’ misjoinder arguments were moot because they were the only remaining defendants in the case. However, the court found that Moving Hearts’ complaint was still operative even if all other Defendants were defaulted or dismissed.

The court also addressed an argument advanced by Chrome hearts that it properly alleged joinder under Bose Corp. v. P’ships, et al., 334 F.R.D. 511, 515-17 (N.D. Ill. 2020). Chrome Hearts alleged that all Defendants’ activities constitute the same occurrence because they “ocurr[ed] at the same time and in the same retail space and manner as one another, blend[ing] together to create a single negative impression on consumers.” The complaint further alleged that Defendants are “collectively causing harm to [its] goodwill and reputation because the effect of their unlawful actions taken together amplifies each harm and creates a single negative consumer impression.” Chrome Hearts said such allegations show that all Defendants attacked its intellectual property in a “swarm,” which constituted an occurrence for the purpose of joinder, even without any coordination. The court wrote that Chrome Hearts’ reliance on Bose was misplaced because the reasoning from that case does not apply here.

Some of the photographs, product descriptions, and prices are the same among the Moving Defendants, and different from what is depicted on the Defaulting Defendants’ storefronts. The court said this finding supports joining the Moving Defendants together.

The court said that Moving Defendants can be properly joined in one separate action, and that the burden on Chrome Hearts to pay an additional filing fee does not outweigh the fundamental unfairness of forcing the Moving Defendants to stay in a case that does not involve them.

The Case is No. 1:26-cv-00497.

Judge: Kendall, V.

Attorneys: Amy Crout Ziegler (Greer, Burns & Crain Ltd.) for Chrome Hearts LLC. Adam Edward Urbanczyk (AU LLC) for Jieshengyuankeji.

Companies: Chrome Hearts LLC; The Partnerships and Unincorporated Associations Identified on Schedule A

Cases: Copyright Trademark IllinoisNews