Biglaw

Boutique Bests Biglaw In Booze-Bottle Battle

A jury trial, a celebrity client, and booze, lots of booze....

U.S. DISTRICT COURT FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA — GLOBEFILL, INC. V. ELEMENTS SPIRITS, INC. — TRIAL TRANSCRIPT

The excerpts are fairly self-explanatory, but here’s some brief background:

1. Pages 34-44: David Berg cross-examines Kim Brandi about consumer confusion over the Crystal Head and KAH bottles. Protip: it’s not a good idea to testify at trial in a way that’s completely contradicted by your prior video deposition.

2. Pages 200-01: Timing matters in this case. Crystal Head Vodka hit the market in September 2008. KAH Tequila hit the market more than two years later, in November 2010. Kim Brandi claimed that she worked on the KAH bottle independently, without seeing the Crystal Head bottle, prior to the release of Crystal Head in 2008. She then said that she didn’t work on the KAH bottle in 2008 because she suffered “a loss in her family” that year — specifically, her daughter — and didn’t resume work on the bottle until 2009.

At the prior trial in this case in 2013, Brandi wept when testifying about these matters. This generated great sympathy for her in the jury, which ruled in favor of Elements. (That verdict got tossed when the Ninth Circuit reversed and remanded for a new trial.)

This time around, Brandi couldn’t employ the same strategy. As Berg brought out during cross-examination — with great care, given the sensitive nature of the subject — the supposedly dead daughter was, well, not so dead….

[pdfjs-viewer url=”https://abovethelaw.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2017/03/Globefill-v-Elements-transcript-excerpts.pdf”]

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DBL square headshotDavid Lat is the founder and managing editor of Above the Law and the author of Supreme Ambitions: A Novel. He previously worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid F. O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. You can connect with David on Twitter (@DavidLat), LinkedIn, and Facebook, and you can reach him by email at [email protected].

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