| Oct 29 @ 12:51 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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PepsiCo hit with $1.26 billion judgment
2 Wisconsin men claim the beverage giant stole their idea to sell purified water. Notice of their lawsuit was mislaid by a secretary.
Posted by Charley Blaine on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 6:41 PM
This is what can happen if you don't read your mail.
A Wisconsin judge has ordered PepsiCo (PEP) to pay $1.26 billion to two men who said the company stole their idea to sell purified water after a secretary mislaid a document alerting the world's No. 2 soft-drink maker the lawsuit existed.
The case was reported first today by The National Law Journal. The judgment amount is equal to more than 20% of PepsiCo's reported annual profits in recent years, regulatory filings show.
According to filings with the Jefferson County Circuit Court near Madison, Charles Joyce and James Voigt won the Sept. 30 judgment five months after first suing PepsiCo and two distributors.
PepsiCo stock was little changed at $60.99 today.
The Wisconsin men said they talked with the distributors in 1981 about their idea to bottle and sell purified water and that PepsiCo later stole the idea by creating Aquafina.
The complaint was filed on April 28, but PepsiCo said the legal department at its Purchase, N.Y., headquarters was not alerted to the case until around Sept. 18, when secretary Kathy Henry received a letter for her supervisor, Tom Tamoney.
Henry, however, put the letter aside and did not tell anyone about it or enter it into her log "because she was so busy preparing for a board meeting," according to PepsiCo's Oct. 13 motion asking the court not to enforce the judgment
1st off....this was a frivolous lawsuit in my opinion and should have been thrown out of court..
2ndly.. the service was bogus as the letter of the law was enforced.but not the intent.. service by mail???? get real... 
and lastly...should the secretary be fired?? should this Judge..be disbarred and or ..stripped of his powers?
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| Oct 30 @ 9:56 AM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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eastham
Posts: 7,907
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1st off....this was a frivolous lawsuit in my opinion and should have been thrown out of court..
First of all, there isn't enough information in this story to say whether or not it was frivilous. We don't know what was involved in this meeting and it would not be the first time a major corporation stole the idea of a small businessman in this way.
2ndly.. the service was bogus as the letter of the law was enforced.but not the intent.. service by mail???? get real...
Secondly, the letter, in all likelihood, was sent certified mail. I am the plaintiff in a lawsuit and everything is conducted via mail. You must have a paper trail. Everything is in writing.
and lastly...should the secretary be fired?? should this Judge..be disbarred and or ..stripped of his powers?
Absolutely, the secretary should be fired. As to the judge, he did nothing wrong. The burden was on Pepsi to appear. The award is based on sales numbers for Aquafina, not some number the judge pulled out of his hat.
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| Oct 30 @ 10:06 AM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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capobeachguy
Posts: 4,737
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So, these clowns "talked with the distributors in 1981" and never took action to develop a product until they saw an opportunity to cash in by suing Pepsico 28 years later...
Let them pay all the court costs!!!
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| Oct 30 @ 10:56 AM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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Paralegal_at_Law
Posts: 5,868
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Let justice prevail though the Heavens fall.
Leo Garrison, Orleans Parrish, LA. District Attorney
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| Oct 30 @ 11:58 AM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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nice quote Para... 
but in this case...was justice served..?? or raped by two men and a judge "  " who could not even take the time to say...as the defendants are not here..I question the service ..and so I am going to require the plaintif to use the marshall's office to re-serve them ..to where the right people of this multinational corporation are notified.. to where they can answer/ defend this.. and have their day in court...
it was/is.....a frivolous lawsuit..
hell..if we follow your thinking.. the creators of George Jefferson should hold the patent on...web camming...
(remember eastham.. you are small potatos..and if you sign the registered mail ticket....you know... and if you choose to not appear...you have no defense... end of story....
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| Oct 30 @ 12:14 PM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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SweetNapaGuy
Posts: 8,468
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Let justice prevail though the Heavens fall.
Not the original quote. It predates him (and by him, I assume you mean Jim Garrison?) by at least four or five centuries. 1
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| Oct 30 @ 3:57 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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eastham
Posts: 7,907
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as the defendants are not here..I question the service
Under CA law, for a civil case you do not serve papers through the marshall's office. You have three options, including the mail.
There are 3 ways to "serve" the defendant with papers to start your case:
Personal service:
Personal service means that someone gives the Summons and Complaint to the defendant.
Service by mail:
This means that someone mails the Summons and Complaint to the defendant. And,
Service by publication:
This means that you publish the Summons and Complaint in the newspaper that the defendant’s most likely to read. You have to ask the court’s permission to do this. Usually you have to try personal service a few times first.
Remember: You can’t serve the papers.
Under MN law, when a corporation is sued, the MN secretary of state's office is also apprised of the suit. If the judge allowed a judgement to go forward, the plaintiffs had to produce information that all parties were served -- the delivery slip from the registered letter to Pepsico, the serving form and payment sent to the secretary of state's office, etc.
Pepsi dropped the ball. I'm sure they'll appeal and they may win on appeal, but you can't say from the limited amount of information in the above article that the letter of the law was not met. Furthermore, with regard to the length of time between the first meeting and this suit, perhaps that time was used by the plaintiffs to settle the matter out of court. All of these cases have a statute of limitations and it is not possible for something to go on this long.
Amended to add article from National Law Journal. This article has a bit more information, including that Pepsi was served in June as were the two distributors the plaintiffs claim passed their patented information to Pepsi. The distributors were aware of the suit. Furthermore, the MN courts have traditionally taken a stern line with entities which fail to appear.
[Edited on 10/30/2009 4:21 PM]
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| Oct 30 @ 6:41 PM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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I like your "amended article" part..and have no issue with it... 
( as it renforces my position here ..very well.. )
a case alleging that PepsiCo stole the idea to bottle and sell purified water from two Wisconsin men.......The litigation began in April when Charles Joyce and James Voigt sued the soft drink maker and two of its distributors, alleging they had misappropriated trade secrets from confidential discussions the plaintiffs had with the distributors in 1981...In court documents, PepsiCo argues it was improperly served with the Wisconsin lawsuit in North Carolina..plaintiffs say they served the lawsuit in June on PepsiCo's registered agent in North Carolina, where the company is incorporated, PepsiCo says its law department at the company's Purchase, N.Y.-based headquarters was not notified until September...In court papers, PepsiCo claims it first received a legal document related to the case from the North Carolina agent on Sept. 15 when a copy of a co-defendant's letter was forwarded to Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo's law department...In seeking to dismiss the case, PepsiCo argues that the statute of limitations should preclude the lawsuit, brought 15 years after the company started selling Aquafina and more than two decades after the alleged confidential talks. ....
remember that we are talking about..... putting water in a bottle and selling it.....
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| Oct 30 @ 11:08 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Jankia
Posts: 11,892
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Its the same kind of default judgement levied against anyone that doesnt appear.The suit against Pepsi shouldnt be any different.
Watertown Daily Times
Joyce's and Voigt's lawsuit accuses PepsiCo of misusing trade secrets. It also names Wis-Pak Inc. of Watertown and Carolina Canners Inc., of Cheraw, S.C., companies that make and distribute PepsiCo products, and Thomas M. Hiles, then the executive vice president of Carolina Canners.
The pair claim they entered written confidentiality agreements about a new beverage they were calling “U.P.” with executives of Wis-Pak and Carolina Canners in 1981. The executives violated the agreements and gave the information to PepsiCo, which eventually rolled out a bottled water brand - Aquafina - about a dozen years later, Joyce and Voigt claim.
PepsiCo says it never knew anything about the case. Here's the timeline it gave the court on Oct. 13 when it asked the court to abandon the judgment.
- June 11: Stith & Stith, PepsiCo's law firm in North Carolina, is “allegedly” served with the complaint but the company gets no word.
- Sept. 15: Stith & Stith forwards a letter about the case to Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo's legal department, but his secretary, Kathy Henry, “was so busy preparing for a board meeting she did not deliver it to anyone” or tell anyone about it or enter it into a log that tracks such things, according to PepsiCo's court filing.
- Sept. 29: The plaintiffs ask for a default judgment - a ruling that they won because PepsiCo failed to make a case against them - and the court complies the following day.
- Oct. 5: When Henry receives that notice, she enters it in her log, and that triggers her memory of receiving the earlier letter.
PepsiCo lawyers learned about the case the next day, the company said.
Van Dyke, with the Chicago law firm Cassiday Schade, said he is drafting a response to PepsiCo's motion. He said he asked for $1.26 billion based on the revenue and profit PepsiCo has made from the Aquafina brand.
According to his timeline, Joyce and Voigt developed the idea to purify water and sell it to the public in 1981. The idea, including specifics of purification process and marketing of the product, was presented to Carolina Canners and Wis-Pak. A confidentiality agreement was executed between the parties, he stated. The bottlers declined to proceed with the project.
Later, PepsiCo introduced bottled water named Aquafina to its product line. The plaintiffs discover that a PepsiCo product is being produced using the purification process protected under the confidentiality agreement.
On April 28 Cassiday Schade law firm of Chicago, with partner Van Dyke, filed the complaint in Jefferson County Court alleging breach of contract. The company is served with summons and complaint according to the address located on the Internet.
On Sept. 29, Van Dyke filed a motion for default judgment and the following day the judge granted the motion and entered the judgment in favor of the plaintiffs.
If the agreements were enforceable contracts, the plaintiffs may have a case, said Mark Leonard, a partner at Davis and Leonard LLP, in Sacramento, Calif., who focuses on intellectual property. Typically, patents are the best way to protect ideas, he said, but not everything can be patented.
“In the event it was not patentable, which would not surprise me, then the only way to protect that idea would be contractually,” he said.
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| Oct 30 @ 11:54 PM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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yeah but.... you have to know that you are being sued in order to mount a valid defense..
...is the point.. not the fact that a default judgement was granted...
this is all about the service..( imho) as the suit itself....has no merit... after all..how many different ways are there to purify water before bottling...??
come on.. this is not rocket science here....
to make it to where you can understand. this...it would be like me suing you for making cheese..because 20 years ago..I said.. hey..with all those cows ..you have...you should make cheese..as well as selling milk...
and at the time..I did not think you knew how to make cheese....so I should get some of your (stockholders) money....as my cheesemaking method that I say I shared with you...is a family secret recipe...
It is the service that is the issue.......
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| Oct 31 @ 1:10 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Paralegal_at_Law
Posts: 5,868
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you have to know that you are being sued in order to mount a valid defense..
The knowledge of the corporate registered agent of the existence of a suit in litigation IS THE CORPORATION'S KNOWLEDGE. It is not excusable delay for a secretary to lay aside judicial process such as a court's summons and fail to fulfill the duties of passing along important notices and writs.
Serving as a corporate registered agent is an important function. It is best left to attorneys at law and professional registered agents (for instance, I myself serve in this capacity for the benefit of a number of corporations in my state).
Pepsi was negligent in retaining a corporate registered agent who upon service of process, did not within 24 hours send the lawsuit to the attention of Pepsi attorneys by registered mail, return receipt requested.
The US Supreme Court has rejected the death-row appeal of a man about to be put to death saying that the party had missed an appeals deadline and was ripe for execution; in civil law, when a defendant misses a civil suit deadline and a default judgement is entered, the posture of the case becomes one where the defendant is ripe for civil execution such as levy of its assets to seize or garnish funds, credits, receivables, and capital assets, up to the sum owed to the judgement debtor, including court costs which include the fees collected by a court of sheriff for the issuance of the levy or garnishment and the service of judicial process executions.
Its called due process of law.
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| Oct 31 @ 1:32 PM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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SweetNapaGuy
Posts: 8,468
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for instance, I myself serve in this capacity for the benefit of a number of corporations in my state
There's that narcissism again. We all know you're a generic nobody who is forced to rely on the internet to get a chance to pretend to be a somebody.
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| Oct 31 @ 1:41 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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Pepsi was negligent in retaining a corporate registered agent who upon service of process, did not within 24 hours send the lawsuit to the attention of Pepsi attorneys by registered mail, return receipt requested.
bingo... now here is the rub..
should the award ...to people who file a frivolous lawsuit ( that anyone could have had thrown out by stating in court..." the statute of limitations has expired..so the point is moot..") be allowed to stand...??
because some idiot did not do the job he was supposed to...which was ..forward a lawful service to the people that needed to know.... and to let a dimwit secretary know how serious this one letter was... ( bet the outside made it look like an insignificant piece of paper ..one that can be put in a drawer and forgotten about til later...)
remember that the process server has may choices as to how a legal service is to be done ( the letter of the law..) ... but the intent of the law is to let the parties that need to know....about the suit...KNOW.... so that they can have their day in court...
Did Pepsico have their day in court here?? or is this "part of america" all about rewarding people who play the technicality game to their advantage....
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| Oct 31 @ 1:49 PM |
pepsico and the tort game..... |
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SweetNapaGuy
Posts: 8,468
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Is there any reason that Pepsico can't appeal the judgment? Or did they lose their right when they didn't show up?
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| Oct 31 @ 1:57 PM |
pepsico and the tort game.....
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Gallows_Humor
Posts: 13,642
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The lead plaintiffs lawyer, David Van Dyke of Chicago-based Cassiday Schade, said Wisconsin courts have been "pretty clear that they don't like" vacating default judgments. "There is a possibly that a judge may say we're going to litigate the damages aspect of it," Van Dyke said.
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