Citing an affidavit, attorney Tricia Wilson Magee of Shumaker Loop & Kendrick LLP argued that May created the Inspire Dance Team at Winding Springs Elementary as an independent initiative for underprivileged students. She stated that May had verbal approval from the school’s principal to use its facilities for practice.
Jackson Day countered that the team was part of CMS and not a separate venture, which would mean CMS—not May or Lewis—owned any rights to the trademark.
A Tangled Timeline and a Lingering Question
As the hearing unfolded, Vogel revealed that since the September injunction hearing, Jackson Day discovered CMS had abandoned the Inspire name after May and Lewis left in 2018. But Judge Diaz seemed unimpressed by this late revelation.
“If that’s the case, why didn’t you bring this up sooner? Why are we here instead of back at the district court?” he questioned.
Magee, representing May and Lewis, maintained that her clients brought Inspire with them to Jackson Day as a condition of employment. She asserted that they used the name in competitions for two years before the school began claiming commercial rights in 2020.
