Paul Frank Fight Is Taken to the PR Firms
A flurry of press releases issued in the back-and-forth battle between designer Paul Frank Sunich and his former partners at Paul Frank Industries Inc. have kept e-mail boxes full.
After Sunich was allegedly forced out of the company in November 2005 by his two partners, Ryan Heuser and John Oswald, he filed two lawsuits against them on March 15. One lawsuit claimed copyright infringement. The other aimed to dissolve the company, based in Costa Mesa, Calif.
Sunich founded the company in 1995 and became famous for his well-known image of Julius the Monkey, whose face was splashed on everything from T-shirts to towels.
Days after the complaints were filed in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles, the two partners sent out a press release noting that Sunich’s lawsuits were completely meritless and untrue.
“We have no intention of selling our company, dissolving it or doing anything other than continuing to produce fun, innovative, high-quality products,” they said in the press statement, which continued, “P.S. The recent debut of Paul Frank Industries Inc.’s Fall 2006 line, with which Mr. Sunich had no involvement, is the most successfully booked line the company has ever produced.”
Sunich’s camp then sent out a press release noting that his former partners were trying to get him to stop using his name and that he must shut down a one-page Web site with the founding artists’ charity design. “My former partners are trying to change history by ignoring and completely erasing my contributions to the company and are even falsely stating that I had nothing to do with the 2006 line,” Sunich said in his press release. “If they truly believe the things they are saying, they should allow me to continue my career in design.” —Deborah Belgum
