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TechnoratiA Corporate Monster v. 'The Vermonster'
Where are those lawsuit abuse groups when you really need them?
Chance are that you've seen ads, letters-to-the-editor, op-ed pieces and other materials put out by outfits with such civic-sounding names on Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse. By whatever name, the message is always the same, usually delivered in a sort of urgent, basso profundo voice saying something like this: "Bloodsucking lawyers are constantly filing frivolous lawsuits against beleaguered corporations. Stop these lawyers and their loser clients — demand that your lawmakers cut them off from the courthouse."
Hmmmm. Stop consumers from bullying big business — now there's an improbable populist cause if I ever heard one! Who are these "citizens" who've formed such noisy lawsuit abuse groups?
Well, they're just neighbors, we're told by the groups. Yeah, assuming you have a neighbor named Philip Morris. In the mid-'90s, this tobacco giant was still fighting off class-action lawsuits from hundreds of thousands of Americans who'd been addicted to, sickened and killed by the corporation's murderous products. Unable to win in court, Philip Morris and its corporate allies secretly launched a nationwide campaign to rig the rules of judicial access in their favor. Philip Morris itself put up $16 million in 1995 to hire a PR firm to create faux "grassroots" fronts in every state under the banner of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.
These CALA front groups (which continue to demonize consumer lawyers and fight for new laws to take away our fundamental right to seek legal redress against corporations that injure us) are funded and controlled through another corporate front named ATRA — American Tort Reform Association. Its backers include a who's who of big business brand names, from Anheuser-Busch to Wyeth Pharmaceuticals.
The lawsuit abuse groups are innately dishonest, not only because they deliberately hide their special-interest parentage from the public, but also because they're not really against abusive lawsuits. It's only legal actions against big corporations that get their knickers in a knot.
On the other hand, when those same corporations turn their powerhouse legal departments against the hoi polloi (consumers, small businesses, environmental groups, etc.), we never hear a peep of complaint from a CALA about abuse. Curiously inconsistent, huh?For example, where is their outrage about Hansen Beverage Inc., the nationwide, billion-dollar marketer of "Monster" energy drinks? This Goliath has unleashed its legal hounds to go chasing clear across the continent to take a big bite out of a tiny David in Morrisville, Vt. There, Matt and Renee Nadeau have created a local business producing artisan beers. Their Rock Art Brewery employs seven people, and they make a terrific brew with the bodacious name of, "The Vermonster."
When this label hit the sensitive radar of Hansen Beverage, the corporate lawyers fired off a nuclear email to the Nadeaus, demanding that they cease and desist from using the Vermonster name — or be sued. Sued for what? For infringing on Hansen's "Monster" trademark, barked the cross-country lawyers, adding that Rock Art's use of "Vermonster" would "undoubtedly create a likelihood of (consumer) confusion" between the two brands.
Uh, we make a beer not an energy drink, replied the Nadeaus — and our beer comes in a 22-ounce brown bottle that looks nothing like a Hansen product.
Commonsense, however, is not spoken by corporate lawyers, and the Hansen gang promptly shifted from frivolous to abusive, demanding the surrender of the label, plus compensation to cover Hansen's high-priced legal fees.
Corporate executives and lawyers know that they can drag out cases like this for years. The timeline takes no skin off the nose of billion-dollar outfits with their own legal staffs, but a protracted fight can quickly bankrupt a small business. Thus, even though the corporate power is in the wrong, it can usually bully the innocent into submission.
Maybe not this time, though. "Corporate America can't be allowed to do this," declared a defiant Matt Nadeau. So the feisty couple has mounted an online campaign to rally us consumers and others to push back against the abuse of the Hansen "monster." They won't get the support of the CALA frauds, but maybe they'll get yours. Check out their revolt at www.rockartbrewery.com
38 Comments so far
Show AllIs Hansen going to try to monopolize Halloween next?
If you want to see government protection of "intellectual property rights" (patents and copyrights) at its insidious worst, see a story from yesterday on IPS that the European Union is blocking shipments of generic HIV/AIDS drugs to poor countries on grounds that these shipments violate the patent rights of drug companies in EU's constituent countries. Reckon the survivors of someone in Somalia who died of AIDS could sue the EU or one of these companies for a wrongful death? Nah, that would be "abusive!"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=48935
The question of intellectual property rights for life saving products could be solved if health research were done by public bodies like the NIH rather than being left almost completely to the drug cartels.
Joe
It seems to me nobody is hitting on what should be the more important message here - the entire legal system. If is is so complex that highly trained and very expensive lawyers are required to navigate it, then it is not accessible to average people and, almost by definition, has become a tool of the elite, and is thus very much not democratic and needs to be scrapped and something simpler and controlled by 'we the people' put into place. Secondly, to the extent that we are saddled with this thing, then having serious access to it only through expensive lawyers and a bank account deep enough to maintain a lengthy legal battle once again leads to the same place - it is a tool of the wealthy, and thus not democratic. Hmm - just realised that that comment applies to pretty much everything that is important in modern democracies, starting with expensive-to-buy politicians, daily newspapers, etc.
For a look at how things might be done, there is a chapter in a book about an actual democacy called Green Island that gets into things legal - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/lgi/pts/pts20.html (the whole book can be looked at here - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland.html ). And the way a certain war criminal president gets dealed with by a competent court is explored here - http://www.rudemacedon.ca/greenisland/ex/gw19.html .
I've given this thought; here's a chunk of a previous comment that speaks to these issue, I believe:
The term "transparent" has been done to death, but it'll have to do. So: for the sake of discussion, let's say that the Founders sincerely intended to create as transparent a government as possible, and that they implicitly expected that elected representatives would, in general, honorably and soberly discharge their official duties in an open and straightforward manner.
Speaking broadly, that is. Obviously any government of humans will accommodate exceptions and harbor miscreants, and obviously there are extreme and isolated circumstances calling for subtlety and secrecy.
To connect big, lumpy dots: the USA arose in a time when rapid territorial expansion, technology and commerce combined to create increasingly diverse, complex, and specialized law and legislation.
Meanwhile, the partisan politics frowned upon by the Founders shifted democracy from populist direct participation to membership in a party; the essence of partisanship is ceding one's individual franchise to the authority and control of the party.
Thus, in my view, a creeping schism gradually arose in which a government ostensibly of, by, and for The People assumed total responsibility for, and control of, the literal Letter(s) of the Law(s). And the process and product of legislation perforce became an arcane technical process with a language and form unintelligible to a layperson.
It's as if the enacting of laws adopted an approach consistent with a standard expressed by pitching great Johnny Sain: "The world doesn't want to hear about the labor pains; the world only wants to see the baby."
And, as sometimes happens when concerned parties finally SEE a baby with uncertain parentage, the parties are reduced to desperately seeking features that bear even a faint resemblance to possible progenitors. When standing at the window of the legislation nursery, the hope is to find features that resemble the true and original intent and scope of the legislation.
So now we're stuck with a professionalized, specialized political elite that transacts business way over the heads of the ordinary citizen. There are wheels within wheels within wheels in infinite recession, and even citizens with time, training, and dedication can't reasonably be sufficiently informed on every important issue.
And ironically, the furtive and increasingly opaque modern organized crime syndicate of our government does not hesitate to adopt an adversarial posture toward the citizenry from which it ostensibly derives its authority!
For instance, legislation DOES occasionally get passed surreptitiously, in the dead of night. But that's only necessary for the EGREGIOUS outrages. The present legislative process, even during business hours, is a case of "hiding in plain sight".
The conventional media establishes the public storyline, and provides formulaic reporting and analysis to put an open, businesslike spin to the proceedings. Thus, there's a broad but superficial consensus on what our Elected Misrepresentatives are supposedly up to.
But the esoteric sleight-of-hand sausage-making-- the inside wheeling, dealing and numbers-crunching-- is exclusively patrician business. Directly interested parties and wonks can follow the proceedings, as experienced handicappers follow the horses, but generally the people are ultimately left outside the process, reduced to standing in the square and waiting for the Leader(s) to pop out on the balcony and tell them what's what.
The ultra-specialized elite of detached professionals, including the banksters, tycoons, and generals, are a Mandarin class that far more resemble courtiers in a monarchy than humble servants of the People.
They are sustained by a mystification that is toxic to a rational, enlightened system of government.
Simplify, simplify!
· Yr Obd't Servant
True - the complications you mention also stifle small business. Tax laws, license requirements and other restrictions almost assume you have the money for accounting and legal firms at start up time. The IRS is not at all helpful in clarifying what it takes to comply with their laws, especially for e-business, in which state and national boundaries create complications.
Joe
Wonderfully well said. Bravo!
In Mexico, Vermonsters are called "Chupacabras".
It must be like that Bigfoot/Sasquatch thing.
· Yr Obd't Servant
"Philip Morris and its corporate allies secretly launched a nationwide campaign to rig the rules of judicial access in their favor. Philip Morris itself put up $16 million in 1995 to hire a PR firm to create faux "grassroots" fronts in every state under the banner of Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse.'
And there it is again; the same exact pattern of thinking ahead to rig the game and the rules while all the while decrying anyone accusing corporations of conspiracies from law to war to Wall Street to the media liars for the pentagon and health insurance corporations,
Does anyone NOT GET IT YET?
As to the Vermonster monicker, years ago (I live in Vermont) I used to buy candy at a gas station nearby. They had this big caramel bar called the Vermonster. It tasted great but I control my sugar intake these days. Vermonster is an old term in Vermont.
Simple. Don't buy Hansen products. Buy "Vermonster."
Just went to the Vermonster brewery's website and it looks like the owners are claiming victory. I didn't check for details, though.
Hell Yeah!
Just call Hansen's. That's what I did. We are their exact demographic. Who do you think buys Hansen's Natural soda? Lefties.
Here is the number at Hansens'
Contact us by Phone: 1-800-HANSENS or 1-800-426-7367
This is a no brainer public relations screw up for them. I buy these drinks a lot, and I won't anymore unless they relent.
I called... they are all panicked. They have a person who acts nice and takes your name and email down. For this cause I am willing to put up with that. We should be able to win this one. If not, then what can we win?
and this is the cease and desist letter
http://www.rockartbrewery.com/uploads/Monster_Letter.pdf
It has the attorneys contact info, etc.
Anyway, I also sent this letter to the lawyer.
Dear Diane,
I read your cease and desist letter about "The Vermonster".
So... I urge you to cease and desist yourself. Luckily you will probably charge your client for reading this email.
All The Best,
Pace Veterane
" they're not really against abusive lawsuits. It's only legal actions against big corporations that get their knickers in a knot.
On the other hand, when those same corporations turn their powerhouse legal departments against the hoi polloi (consumers, small businesses, environmental groups, etc.), we never hear a peep of complaint from a CALA about abuse."
That pretty much sums it all up. The same so-called "tort reform" frauds want nothing more than to make justice yet another privilege just like health care. It's already bad enough that the current justice system is corrupt as the side with the most money stands a better chance of winning.
P.S.: One of my older friends from Texas told me the rise in premium rates from Big Insurance after the so-called "tort reform" passed in his state.
One other note. In 2005, the Democrats including Obama sided with the Republicans to force corporate wrongdoing lawsuits to federal courts which often dismiss the cases or side with the corporate leaders against the employees and consumers 9 out of 10 times.
Happens all the time. I was sued a while back by a company that sold a green product. I was selling a functionally similar green product that didn't look anything like their product and had a completely different name. They sued and demanded that they had the exclusive right to the colour green and also demanded that I didn't import any green products even if they didn't sell anything like the product, just that is was green. It was pretty funny because I had already stopped selling the green products because my customers had asked me to since they reminded them of the big companies green products which they didn't like. My business eating into their market went up when I changed the colour. Thanks big stupid "green" company.
Was it a NEW company? Sounds like they made a rookie mistake in their method of handling the dispute.
If so, you can't blame them for being a bit green.
· Yr Obd't Servant
Don't you just LOVE how we have been turned into the country where MONEY makes everything right? Especially for those who ALREADY have FAR more than they will ever need? But those who have none, or are just trying to make a little bit with their own initiative, we're just plain out of luck.
Big business just can't stand competition, regardless of how much they LIE about it and say they do. They FEAR competition like the plague. If a company like Hansen's, which has been around for decades, now, and has the advantage of their age and position, can't handle someone doing something that doesn't even come close to being in their own market, then there is no reason to believe that they will EVER allow anyone to play fairly.
And to Hansen's - You can't claim permanent use of a WORD, for the love of God. Monster has been around FAR longer than you have, and you have NO business telling anyone else they can't use a word that is in the GODDAMNED DICTIONARY.
I hope that RockArt comes back at you with a malicious persecution suit and sues you for every penny they can. You deserve nothing less.
Someone at Monster Cable, Inc., needs to be informed of this lawsuit. They owned the brand name before those with Hansen's Disease tried to claim the same name. And what about Monster.com? And, let us not forget the awesome motorcycle line of Monsters from Ducati. Shouldn't they be informed also? Maybe all the "monster" brands should get together and file a class action lawsuit against Hansen.
Kent aka EKATON
Hey, you may be on to something here. Could this be a way to create a bloodsport game among the corps. in court? Let's get all of the "Monsters" together in the ring!
I notice in your aka you've appropriated the name of the EKATON - copper & brass electrical contacts & switchgear company. Their lawyers will be contacting you for your breach of their intellectual property in that name.
"Their lawyers ... "
No doubt!! "EKATON" means "100" in Greek. The old 100 drachma note had "EKATON" printed on it over the helmeted head of a Spartan soldier. At a time in the past I had been using the screen name "EKAT" on IRC so it seemed a good fit. I'm adding the "aka" in these postings because I just today switched from that pseudonym to my real name. I'll drop the "aka" after a few days.
Kent
This kind of thing happens all the time in this Land of the Free Market and home of the Brave Corporations. Some years ago, I saw in New York city a (way off) Broadway production of a Methodist minister's play about Winnie the Pooh and later wanted to produce the play in a local community theatre and contacted the minister for permission to produce it. My answer: he'd love to do it, but after he gave permission for another small theatre production, the Hounds of Hell from Walt Disney Enterprises contacted him and threatened to sue him for the exclusive contract they claimed to have to market anything-Pooh. So was that minister going to stand up against the legal minions of WD? Of course not, he ceased and desisted as they had demanded. Was what they were threatening an "abusive" lawsuit? I think so.
Likewise, General Mills corporate counsel went after a family-owned business-- a restaurant, IIRC-- named "Wehde's" on the grounds that it infringed on their "Wheaties" trademark!
From GM's perspective, the Wehdes were no better than cereal killers!
· Yr Obd't Servant
C'mon now...let's go easy on the puns. It is early afterall;)
Right as usual, Jim Hightower. "Reform" means getting people out of the way of corporations.
This is the kind of thing that should be on the news.
General Rule; When you hear the rich use the word "reform" they mean "destroy", "eliminate", or "drastically reduce". Does anyone think "Social Security Reform" means correcting the Clinton Era manipulation of the CPI to reduce SS payments? Or "Tort Reform" means equalizing the opposing legal teams' budgets?
Yeah, so true! When you hear the work "reform", hunker down!
The word "reform" used to mean a good thing - ending corruption and undemocratic big-money influence from this or that institution. Now it means exactly the opposite!
And don't EVER get me started on the term: "intellectual property rights"!
The founders of patent and copyright law formulated their limited government protection of literature and novel inventions, becasue it was in the _public_ interest to promote artistic or technlogical advancement.
Never would thay have imagined that these laws would be turned on their head with an idea becoming "property" to be bought sold and speculated like a building on Park Avenue, and defended a "right" like as if it were the First Amendment - even when it is clearly against the public interest and results in the deaths of thousands - as it does when lifesaving drugs are withheld from production simply because a patent holder has a "right" to deny it's manufacture, so the price of the "intellectual property" goes up on the speculative market.
The same "intellectual property" crap is strangling the development and manufcture of advanced batteries for electric vehicles. A single Canadian company - that doesn actually manufacture or invent anything, was granted a series of absurdly broad patents (under patent office "reforms" that allows stuff that would have never been patentable in the past) such that it has worldwide stranglehold, for the purposes of speculation, on any kind of phosphate-based lithium-ion battery.
I repeat, there is no such thing as "intellectual property" - only certain restrictions, for a ertain time on copying physical sentences or a physical contrivance, granted by a government, because it is in the public interest.
I think I'd disagree that there's no such thing as intellectual property. I'm not completely clear on how to treat it, but the idea that someone has no right to benefit personally from the sacrifice of perhaps half their life...that doesn't feel right.
Maybe the solution is that any such property accrues to and cannot be alienated from society as a whole, with the creator compensated by a permanent, unlimited expense account if the creative product is of universal value such as a cure for Alzheimer's or cancer or a method for cold fusion.
Did Newton demand royalties every time someone used F=ma? Does the estate of Einstein demand royalties every time someone used E=mc^2?
Yet a lot of corporations are trying to do exactly such a thing now.
Most inventors are receive a salary from universities or from corporate research centers or the like. Isn't that enough?
And read my comment - most patents are held by corporations that are far removed from the original inventor having been bought and sold the patent like a building lot.
An idea isn't property, period. Patents exist to serve the protest public interest, not to protect a property right.
type in a search for 'ster' in an online dictionary and it comes up as a hyphenated suffix:
Word Origin & History
-ster
O.E. -istre, from P.Gmc. *-istrijon, feminine agent suffix used as the equivalent of masculine -ere. Also used in M.E. to form nouns of action (meaning "a person who ...") without regard for gender. The genderless agent noun use apparently was a broader application of the original feminine suffix, beginning in the north of England, but linguists disagree over whether this indicates female domination of weaving and baking trades, as represented in names like Webster, Baxter, Brewster, etc. (though spinster clearly represents a female ending). In Modern Eng., the suffix has been productive in forming derivative nouns (gamester, punster, etc.).
Online Etymology Dictionary, © 2001 Douglas Harper
In other words it remits to the subject of which it is a suffix. It would seem to claim proprietorship over a suffix structure that in practice could deny the right to radical (meaning root) identity.
old goat, I think you have found a perfect defence for the Nadeaus.Now they need a good attorney,a beer drinker who would work pro-bono.It would help the case if he was a cunning-linguist ,and the case could be heard by a beer drinking judge of the fairer sex. baaaaa! peace
The '...ster' suffix is unbelievably popular in the WORLDWIDE vernacular. Sounds like a assault on linguistics.
When I saw the word Vermonster - I immediately thought the article would be about the earth shaking, ecological balance loving Vermonter that roars - Bill McKibben.
Is there such a term as 'frivolous predatory linguistic litigation'? If not, perhaps there should be.
When I saw the word Vermonster I immediately thought of the Bethel, VT softball team - The Vermonsters.
Yeah, I thought of McKibben too. Maybe he should sue the brewery.
Never heard of any such "energy drink" called monster - which sound nothing like "Vermonster" to me. Why aren't they suing monster.com, the CV/job resume site?