Pepsi’s $1.26 billion judgment tossed
In 1981 two individuals in Wisconsin talked to local PepsiCo bottlers about bottling water. I’m sure it seem ludicrous to the bottlers at the time, as water is plentiful in Wisconsin, and my guess is they told the men to take a hike. Fast forward two decades and bottled water is everywhere – and one of the main quenchers of America’s insatiable thirst is Aquafina (which just so happens to be a PepsiCo product).
The two men, Charles Joyce and James Voigt, recently filed a claim stating PepsiCo had misappropriated a trade secret – with the trade secret being the idea to bottle water. The funny part is that PepsiCo, in all its legal glory, never responded to the complaint – and a whopping default judgment of $1.26 billion was entered. When PepsiCo was alerted of the verdict it scrambled to figure out what had gone wrong. Apparently, the company was served correctly, but a secretary forgot to pass the file along because she was too busy preparing for a meeting. Oops.
But fear not, PepsiCo worked it’s legal magic and wiggled out of the judgment. Mistakes and minor clerical errors such as this sometimes enough for a party to vacate a default judgment. Further, there was also that pesky little problem of a statute of limitations. Apparently, if you want to claim someone has misappropriated your trade secret in Wisconsin, you better do it within three years….
