The civil complaint is the second time in six months the pool refurbisher has sued the similarly named business, which spruces up kitchens, bathrooms, and patios.
Brian Morris, the owner of We Fix Ugly Pools, obtained a trademark for his company’s name in 2007. Morris, who brands himself as the Ugly Pool Guy, claimed in September that the company formerly known We Fix Ugly Houses violated his trademark.
After the first lawsuit, the two companies reached a settlement in which We Fix Ugly Houses agreed to stop using any business name “confusingly similar” to We Fix Ugly Pools, namely slogans using the word “ugly."
Morris believes that Brogan attempted capitalize off his company’s name and his alter ego, the Ugly Pool Guy. To make the case, he presented the We Fix Ugly Houses logo next to his “cartoon man logo," noting that the word "houses" on the former logo is smaller than the words "we fix ugly."
Legal exhibit
Legal exhibit
Additionally, Brogan agreed to transfer the domain wefixuglyhousesaz.com to the pool remodeler within 30 days of the October 11 settlement agreement.
Morris claimed We Fix Ugly Homes failed to give up the URL. Morris also claims that Brogan was displaying his old company name on Facebook, the Google business directory, and its storefront sign. Morris had a point.
Before Phoenix New Times reached Brogan, wefixuglyhousesaz.com still redirected to wecanfixitremodeling.com and the company’s Facebook page still showed the We Fix Ugly Houses logo.
Violations of the agreement would require Brogan to pay Morris $50,000.
Reached on the phone Monday, Brogan said he had not yet heard that he was being sued a second time by We Fix Ugly pools.
"Let me do some research about what’s going on,” he said.
Following the call, the Facebook logo changed and wefixuglyhousesaz.com leads to a page stating, “Error establishing a database connection.”
Responding to the claim that he ripped off Morris, Brogan said, "That’s a complete joke. There’s we-fix-ugly-everything. There’s we-buy-ugly-everything.”
Kenneth Spafford, the attorney representing Morris, declined to comment.
According to his lawsuit, Morris discovered Brogan’s business at a Maricopa County Home Show in July 2018, where both companies were exhibiting. Attendees asked We Fix Ugly Pools representatives whether their company was affiliated with We Fix Ugly Homes, the complaint states.
Morris claims a customer informed him they planned to use a different contractor for poor remodeling services after having a bad experience with We Fix Ugly Houses.
The Ugly Pool Guy claims to hold the all-time record for the fastest pool buildout, according to a sponsored article published by the Arizona Republic. He also designed the pool at Chase Field and was featured in a New York Times article for his practice of paying for advertising his company on his fleet of trucks.
