Girl Mania Files Suit Against Wet Seal Inc.
Girl Mania Inc. has filed a $10 million lawsuit against Wet Seal Inc. and Zutopia, its division of tween stores, for trade-dress infringement, unfair competition and misappropriation of trade secrets. The company filed the lawsuit May 9 in the U.S. District Court in Santa Ana, Calif.
Zutopia President Susan O’Toole, who left her job as a consultant at Girl Mania almost a year ago, has been named as a defendant.
Founded three years ago, Montebello, Calif.–based Girl Mania caters to girls between the ages of 4 and 14 with apparel, beauty-salon services and theme-party planning. The stores also offer stages for singing, dancing and modeling. The company operates three retail stores in Orange County, Calif.
The lawsuit alleges that O’Toole copied Girl Mania Inc.’s tween store concept and incorporated it into Zutopia stores. According to the lawsuit, Zutopia began changing its floor design and window displays—devising a heart-shaped motif similar to Girl Mania’s—within months of O’Toole’s arrival at the Wet Seal division.
“For any competitor like Wet Seal to acquire this information would take a serious investment of time and money to research customer-service needs and the shopping and entertainment habits of girls,” said Girl Mania Founder and President Janine Gualderon.
At press time, Wet Seal executives had not returned calls for comment.
The essence of trademark law is source identification, which is typically embodied in a word, symbol or phrase, according to Greg Weisman, a partner at Century City, Calif.–based law firm Silver & Freedman.
Weisman said the law of “trade dress” is more applicable to this case. Trade dress encompasses the overall look or total commercial impression of a product, package or service.
“In plain terms, that means that there are certain situations where there is not just one element but the combination of lots of elements, which, in total, the courts have held to be protectable,” he explained.
“An idea is generally not protectable under any legal theory [trademark, copyright or patent], and an overall style of doing business is also generally not protectable,” Weisman said. “Trade dress attempts to reconcile that issue by denoting certain styles of business as protectable on a limited and case-by-case basis.”
