Apparel Samples Returned to Rightful Owner

What do you do when your apparel samples go missing?

Well, one Los Angeles company filed a lawsuit after a former employee allegedly absconded with its samples and took them to a rival company to sell to Wal-Mart.

In court documents filed Oct. 21 in Los Angeles Superior Court, Simso Tex Sublimation, Printing and Finishing Inc. accused Michael O’Conner, the company’s former vice president of sales, of pilfering the Spring 2009 samples of its children’s ready-to-wear line, Celebutante.

Simso said in September it showed the Celebutante samples to Wal-Mart, which was ready to place a large order for the line once it had decided which designs to include in its order.

But on Oct. 14, Simso said O’Conner took the samples to Fortune Fashions Inc., a rival company located in Vernon, Calif. “Unbeknownst to Simso Tex, O’Conner met with Fortune Fashions to discuss the possible usurpation of the Wal-Mart sales opportunity to be diverted to Fortune Fashions,” the company said in the lawsuit, which named O’Conner and Fortune Fashions as defendants.

Soon after, Simso said it confronted O’Conner, hired in 2006 to head the Celebutante division, about the missing samples. Simso maintains that O’Conner admitted he had discussions with Fortune Fashions about the Wal-Mart order and had supplied Fortune Fashions with the Celebutante samples, the lawsuit said. He was subsequently fired.

Fred Kayne, owner of Fortune Fashions, said his company did receive the samples but didn’t know they belonged to Simso. “A former employee of mine [O’Conner], who worked for Simso Tex, said he had something to show me,” the apparel manufacturer said. O’Conner told Kayne he had designed the samples and had the rights to them, Kayne said. O’Conner was not available for comment.

“We were the unwitting dupes and feel badly about it,” Kayne said.

On Oct. 24, Simso used a writ of possession to retrieve its samples, said Simso’s attorney Robert Ezra. It also obtained a temporary restraining order to keep Fortune Fashions from doing anything with its Celebutante samples or designs.

Kayne said his company has no intention of using the samples now that he is aware of the true owners. “As soon as we got the legal notice, we gathered up the samples and sent them back,” Kayne said. —Deborah Belgum