By Brian Malcom: "Yahoo! Finance is reporting that a busy secretary could cost PepsiCo $1.26 billion dollars. Kathy Henry, a secretary to PepsiCo's Deputy General Counsel Tom Tamoney in PepsiCo's law department, apparently received a legal document related to a pending lawsuit against PepsiCo on September 15. Henry, who was apparently busy preparing for a board meeting, put the letter aside and did not tell anyone about it.
On October 5, Henry received a forwarded copy of the plaintiff's motion for default judgment from Yvonne Mazza, a legal assistant for Aquafina matters. Henry remembered that she had the September 15th document in the same matter and passed it back to Mazza. Mazza then sent the documents to David Wexler, a department attorney, and he immediately noticed something was wrong. Wexler called the agent to get a copy of the Complaint.
It was too late. Damages were awarded the previous week on September 30. PepsiCo filed motions to vacate the order and dismiss the claims on October 13. It argued that it was not even aware of the lawsuit until October 6.
"The litigation began in April when Charles Joyce and James Voigt sued the soft drink maker and two of its distributors, alleging they had misappropriated trade secrets from confidential discussions the plaintiffs had with the distributors in 1981 about selling purified water. The information was illicitly passed to PepsiCo, which used it to develop and sell Aquafina bottled water, the plaintiffs allege in the case filed in the
There is a lesson here: speak with your assistant about timely notification of incoming legal documents. Make sure your assistant is organized and understands the importance of careful and timely review of incoming documents.
...
You are ultimately responsible. Make sure your supporting staff is happy, organized and not overwhelmed. This could have happened because the attorney was overwhelmed, too. Make sure you are managing your workload. If you're overwhelmed, tell someone."
The active link is available at the source site listed below.
Source: Young Lawyers Blog, 29 October 2009
