Charney Says Suit Is Nothing Personal

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American Apparel Inc. Chief Executive Dov Charney is trying to turn what was shaping up as a bloody battle with Woody Allen into a love fest.

Attorneys for American Apparel last week backed away from reports that they planned to call Allen’s former girlfriend Mia Farrow and his current wife Soon Yi Previn to the witness stand in a legal case unfolding in federal court in New York.

Charney stepped back from what had looked like personal attacks by his legal team against Allen as the trial approaches in the director’s suit over an American Apparel advertising campaign that featured Allen’s image without his permission. In a statement last week, Charney said he has “deep respect” for the director.

The three-time Academy Award-winning writer, director and actor sued the L.A. clothing manufacturer last year, alleging American Apparel harmed him with its ad campaign, which he called sleazy and not classy. Allen is seeking $10 million in damages. Jury selection for the trial is scheduled to begin May 18.

As the case gained media coverage, American Apparel’s attorneys came out firing. They claimed the value of the director’s reputation had diminished due to the vast media coverage of his 1992 breakup with Farrow over his affair with her adopted daughter, Previn, whom he later married. Farrow had starred in several of his films.

The company’s attorneys had provided a list of possible witnesses, including Farrow and Previn. Allen’s attorneys filed a motion to prevent them from taking the stand.

But in an interview with the Business Journal on May 6, Charney’s attorney Stuart Slotnick said American Apparel has no intention of calling Farrow or Previn as witnesses at trial.

“They are not on our witness list,” said Slotnick, an attorney at Buchanan Ingersol & Rooney in New York.

Instead, American Apparel’s defense team appears to be trying to downplay earlier references they made to Allen’s personal life and instead put the focus on the case as a First Amendment issue.

American Apparel’s attorneys have indicated that Allen, as a celebrity, is subject to “fair use,” which allows limited reproduction of copyrighted material without permission.

Charney declined to comment for this article. But in a public statement issued last week, he evoked his “deep respect for Mr. Allen, who is a source of inspiration to me.” He also said use of Allen’s image was “intended to be a parody/social statement and comedic satire to provoke discussion and public discourse.”

Allen’s attorneys and his publicist declined to comment for this article.

Attorneys familiar with the case said American Apparel is facing an uphill battle by leaning on the First Amendment. The courts tend to allow the use of a celebrity’s image to slide if it’s in a work of artistic value. But judges are less lenient for commercial use.

“There’s a very important distinction between when a celebrity’s likeness is used to make a comment on them or a social statement versus sell a product,” said Lincoln Bandlow, a partner at Lathrop & Gage LLP in Los Angeles who specializes in First Amendment issues and is not connected to the case. “You can’t just slap someone’s picture on a box of Wheaties.”


Battle of personalities

The lawsuit pits two figures known for their outsized personalities against one another.

Charney has cut a bold swath through the fashion community with his business plan American Apparel has manufactured all its clothing in-house in Los Angeles while many of its competitors outsource work overseas and with his company’s provocative ads featuring scantily dressed models.

But Charney himself has been the subject of controversy, and was even satirized on “Saturday Night Live” over repeated accusations of sexual harassment.

Allen is known as a talented filmmaker. His critically acclaimed “Vicky Christina Barcelona,” released in 2008 featured a performance by Penelope Cruz that won her the Oscar for Best Supporting Actress.

Farrow and Allen, who first got together sometime around 1980, ended their relationship after she found he had nude photos of Previn. As a custody case involving their children got uglier, Farrow accused Allen of molesting one of her other daughters. A prosecutor declined to file charges even though he said he believed Allen was guilty. Allen denied the accusation.

At the heart of the current lawsuit is an advertising campaign American Apparel launched in Los Angeles and New York in 2007. A handful of billboards and images on the Web featured an image of Allen from the film “Annie Hall” along with the American Apparel name and Hebrew letters that translated to “our spiritual leader.”

In a December deposition, Allen lambasted American Apparel, calling the company’s advertising “sleazy” and “infantile,” and expressed concern his image had been sullied because of the campaign.

In his statement issued on Wednesday, Charney said that he was trying to link Allen with American Apparel because he felt both the director and the company were misunderstood by the public. The chief executive also denied media reports that his company’s defense team would make Allen’s personal life a centerpiece of the trial.

Allen’s attorneys had filed motions to prevent Farrow and Previn from taking the stand. They said that American Apparel was trying to mount “a brutish attempt to smear and intimidate Mr. Allen.”

The issue of Allen’s reputation would be relevant if American Apparel was found in violation of copyright and the jury was trying to determine the amount of damages. Attorneys were doubtful that Allen could win $10 million because the advertising campaign was so short.

“It’s hard to see anybody getting $10 million for having their face on a couple of billboards,” said David Aronoff, a partner at Lathrop & Gage in Los Angeles who specializes in media and entertainment litigation, and is not associated with the case.

There may still be a chance that the case could be settled before it goes to trial.

“American Apparel has publicly indicated that they would like to resolve the matter amicably with Mr. Allen,” Slotnick, American Apparel’s attorney, told the Business Journal last week.

But he declined to comment on whether settlement talks are occurring.

Aronoff said it’s possible the furor created by the lawsuit plays right into American Apparel’s hands. After all, the talk about the trial has kept the clothing manufacturer in the spotlight even though its advertising campaign featuring Allen happened almost two years ago.

“American Apparel did this for the publicity,” he said. “You don’t have to be a genius to surmise that they did this knowing that the media attention would be worth many times what the cost of two billboards was.”

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