The Alabama State Supreme Court Friday affirmed last year’s $3.1 million jury win for Dallas-based Varsity Brands in a trade secrets case against Jostens Inc., one of its national competitors in the sale of scholastic-recognition products.
In a unanimous decision, the court rejected — as an affront to the jury’s discretion — that Varsity Brands and it subsidiary, Herff Jones, never actually proved that the dramatic swing of 47 school clients to Jostens in Central and Southern Alabama was the direct result of its hiring of two key sales representatives and the confidential information they took with them.
“It is true that the defendants presented several other potential reasons schools switched their accounts from Herff Jones to Jostens,” wrote Justice Brady Mendheim, “but, in evaluating the trial court’s ruling on a motion for a judgment as a matter of law, we must view the evidence in the light most favorable to the plaintiffs as the nonmovants and entertain any reasonable inferences the jury would be free to draw.”
Varsity and an affiliated contract company, GradPro Recognition Products, sued Jostens and two former Herff Jones sales representatives — John Wiggins and Chris Urnis — after they learned that the two had jumped to Jostens, taking with them key information about products and pricing for such items as caps and gowns, school rings and diplomas. In its verdict last April, the Alabama jury held the company and its two salesmen jointly liable for the total $3.1 million award.
In addition to several Mobile-based attorneys hired by Varsity Brands General Counsel Burton Brillhart, the company was represented at trial by Michael Hurst, Andrés Correa and John Adams of Lynn Pinker Hurst & Schwegmann.