Mary Kay Inc., a Dallas-based company, has filed a civil lawsuit in the Federal District of Texas against La Salle, Illinois residents Scott and Amy Weber and their company, Touch of Pink Cosmetics. Mary Kay’s Touch of Pink is reviving things on the internet. A tortious action involves interference with current and future contracts, unfair competition, omission, and prejudice.
Interpreted by legal-speak, the interference means that the Webers are accused of introducing currency Mary Kay consultants to break their contracts. Mary Kay Mary Kay also alleges that Weber has deterred and continues to sell Mary Kay’s existing business at steep discounts. to discourage women from signing contracts with Mary Kay.
The 71-page complaint contains a brief statement that may be of interest to any current Mary Kay consultant who is using liquidators to recover some money lost on hard-to-sell inventory: “Mary> i> Kay claims court and order leave the matter to be expedited for discovery so that Maria Kay Participation can properly identify. Independent Beauty Consultants, who are also powerful defendants in this lawsuit, before the prejudice of the hearing and the case of judicial economy.” lawyers call it a “fishing campaign”. Mary Kay wants to look around at the Pink Touch business records so they can’t get the information from anywhere else.
Since tortious interference is an act which cannot be committed between two parties to a contract, and is the breach of art alleged by the Webers, who wonders at all why these defendants were consulted? To whom do you complain? The worst thing is to show that he has violated the agreement with Mary Kay and that the contract will be terminated. This is meant to scare off existing consultants who may be tempted to dump an unsalvageable product to grab some of their money.
I found the Mary Kay claim that some consultants were buying from Mary Kay at Wholesale and Touch of Pink selling at 50% Wholesale somewhere between far fetched and ridiculous. Do they really think the consultants will accept the next 50% loss?
The complaint includes several paragraphs, alleging various “unlawful uses” of Mary Kay’s trademarks. If it is true that the consultant’s contract prohibits the consultant from using any of Mary Kay’s trademarks without permission, no such restrictions apply to anyone else, as long as normal trademark laws are followed. Using a trademark in advertising to accurately describe what is being sold is one of the instances when it is not necessary to be a copyright holder. I’m not a lawyer, but the Touch Pink website abuses Mary Kay trademarks the way usedcars.com abuses Ford and BMW trademarks: it doesn’t.
A complaint about “buying words that infringe our trade” has already been decided in favor of the companies that buy words, not the owner of the copyright. A judge in a recent case between Google and Geico said “asa. Material It is not illegal for copyright holders to use trademarks as keywords for advertising purposes.” It’s interesting to note that Mary Kay briefly bought the wording so that their ads would show up if someone searched for “Pink Truth,” a blog that covered Mary Kay’s dirty laundry on the porch.
A company that asks a liquidator to sell its obsolete and redundant assets and threatens to demand its sale must be insolvent.
REFERENCES: Case 3:08-cv-00776 filed 07/05/2008 in the U. District Court for Northern Texas (Dallas).
Report:
- Federal Court of Texas: www.txnd.uscourts.gov/index. html
