North Face Settles Suit With South Butt: US Chamber Outraged at Abuse of Legal System? Naaaah!!!

Back on December 16, 2009, I posted a story, at this location, about the lawsuit filed by the North Face Apparel Company’s lawsuit against 18 year old Jimmy Winkelmann and his parody company "The South Butt". Jimmy’s company manufactures knock-off parodies of North Face clothing using the tag line, "Never Stop Relaxing," whick plays on North Face’s slogan "Never Stop Exploring". Winkelmann said that he was just "poking fun". North Face did not think it was funny and sued Jimmy and "South Butt".

When I first reported the story, I called out the US Chamber of Commerce for criticizing the filing of serious personal injury cases against major corporations. The Chamber likes to call that practice "Lawsuit Abuse". In fact, they have enacted an entire, phony, campaign against "Lawsuit Abuse" and started numerous "Citizens Against Lawsuit Abuse" organizations (in reality, despicable, large corporate interests, spending large corporate dollars, in an attempt to reduce the recoveries of seriously injured people). But when one of these major multi-million dollar corporation sues an 18 year old, who can’t compete, financially, in the legal arena, I guess that is serious litigation to the U.S. Chamber, because there was, absolutely, no criticism of this "abuse" of our legal system. Where was their outrage? I asked.

Well, I am pleased to report that the "North Face v South Butt" lawsuit has been settled. Terms of the settlement were not disclosed, but the good news is that "The South Butt" is still selling its products at its website, Winkelmann’s lawyer said that an amicable resolution had been reached. The South Butt is still selling its products at its website. I encourage all of my readers to visit the site, purchase something, and help pay poor legal fees for poor Jimmy, a real victim of "lawsuit abuse".