Casual Male Wins Non-compete Suit
A federal jury awards $1.5 million to the Casual male Retail Group, ruling that a former business partner stole trade secrets and customer data to benefit a competitor.
Canton MA-based Casual Male sued former partner Robert Yarborough and rival apparel retailer Westport Big & Tall last January, claiming they had used computers and business information from a company Casual Male had acquired to develop an e-commerce site and catalog for Westport.
Last week a jury in U.S. District Court for Boston found for Casual Male.
Casual Male acquired Rochester Big & Tall in 2004 and hired Yarborough and three other Rochester employees as consultants. Yarborough managed the RKC Mail call and catalog fulfillment center in Alpharetta GA. All four signed agreements that they would not work with other big and tall clothing chains for two years after ending their business relation with Casual Male, and that they would keep Rochester’s business secrets confidential.
Casual Male’s suit, filed in September 2005, claimed that Yarborough began working with Westport Big & Tall before the Rochester purchase closed in October 2004, providing customer lists, merchandising plans and other proprietary data to the Westport CT-based retailer. The company said it also found that a Rochester computer server was no longer functioning and that an e-mail database had been trashed.
Under the judgment, Yarborough is ordered to pay Casual Male $1.1 million in damages, while Westport Big & tall will pay $400,000 plus interest.
