A small Laporte feed company’s $15.2 million “David and Goliath” trademark verdict this week against Land O’Lakes Inc. “is a message to those in corporate America … that you have to do what’s right,” one of the firm’s attorneys said Wednesday.
A Denver federal jury ruled Tuesday for the family-owned company, Cache La Poudre Feeds LLC, on all claims, including several alleging willfulness and bad faith on the part of the big food cooperative, said the attorney, Luke Santangelo.
The verdict signals that “big or small, we need to play by the rules,” said Ron Treiber, a one- time corn farmer whose family has owned and operated Cache La Poudre Feeds for a quarter- century. It has employed four to eight people.
The jury’s award is 15 times the company’s recent annual sales. By contrast, Land O’Lakes, owned by 7,000 dairy farmers and 1,200 community cooperatives and based in Arden Hills, Minn., had 2006 revenues of $7.27 billion and 8,500 employees.
“There was evidence, very clear evidence, plenty of people within Land O’Lakes knew about us and our name before they made their decision to go forward,” Santangelo said.
Land O’Lakes spokeswoman Lydia Botham said of the verdict: “Clearly, we were disappointed. … As you maybe know, substantially all the damage award is advisory. The judge will make the final decision. Until the judge makes that decision, this is still a pending litigation.”
Cache La Poudre Feeds uses the name in question – “Profile” – for several lines, including a show feed used by ranchers trying to produce grand- champion steers, lambs and pigs. It has sold Profile largely regionally since 1992, and it filed for federal trademark protection a decade later when it learned Land O’Lakes was contemplating a similarly named product, Santangelo said.
According to the smaller company, a Land O’Lakes subsidiary on April 1, 2002, launched a nationwide marketing campaign “consolidating and re-branding” 400 of its animal feed products also under the name Profile.
“Shortly after we heard of this, we tried to get Land O’Lakes to stop,” the company says on its website.
At trial, Cache La Poudre asked for $30.5 million in profits it said Land O’Lakes made at the expense of its own Profile product. Land O’Lakes variously estimated the profits on its Profile brand to be far lower or nothing at all, Santangelo said. Santangelo tried the case with two other Fort Collins attorneys, Thomas R. French and Cheryl L. Anderson.
The jury, which deliberated Monday and part of Tuesday, ultimately awarded $14.6 million for lost profits plus $600,000 in other damages, Santangelo said.
The trial before U.S. District Judge Wiley Y. Daniel began June 19. Testimony concluded Friday.
