Last month Hudson + Broad, a design firm in New York, filed a lawsuit against department store chain J. C. Penney for an alleged breach of contract. J. C. Penney is now asking the court to dismiss the whole thing.
Here’s what’s been happening so far. JCP asked Hudson + Broad (H+B) to come up with a design for a LED fixture for the JCP stores across the country. If JCP liked the designs, they would ask H+B to produce the line and not just turn over the design to someone who’d do it for less money. Now the design was indeed approved by JCP, but they apparently went ahead and got another manufacturer to produce the fixtures for them. Obviously, this went down badly with H+B who proceeded to file a lawsuit against the giant retailers seeking $40 million in damages.
On Wednesday, JCP asked that the case be dismissed entirely.
You think H+B is taking this lying down? No way! President of H+B James Maharg has gone public on YouTube calling out Ron Johnson, JCP’s CEO.
There’s a lot of money to be made and lost here so we’re sure this will be an interesting case to watch out for.