Lawsuits

John Galliano's lawyer won't specify just how much money in damages the designer is seeking in his lawsuit against Dior, but new information about his salary indicates it's going to be a fairly sizable sum.

"He was at the company for a long time and he had a big salary, so the sums demanded will necessarily be high," said Galliano's lawyer Chantal Giraud-van Gaver after the first hearing in his employment dispute against the company on Monday.

Just how much was Galliano making? Papers filed for the hearing revealed the designer was being paid a $1.3 million annual salary, on top of variable compensation (which means bonuses and stock options) as high as $900,000. Dior also paid him a percentage of its annual increase in sales and gave him an annual clothing allowance of $38,850, as well as a grooming budget for personal appearances of $77,700.

At his eponymous label, Galliano earned a salary of $2.6 million a year and a clothing allowance of $90,650. Galliano also acted as a consultant on catwalk shows, ad campaigns, and websites through a company he owns called Cheyenne Freedom, which was paid "hefty" fees. All told, in a good year, Dior could easily spend over $5 million on Galliano's salary and benefits.

When Galliano originally filed the suit in August, he was believed to have asked for over $18 million in damages, but WWD asked Giraud-van Gaver whether a figure approaching $8 million wasn't more accurate.

"If you add it all up, then probably yes, because if you are earning more than €3 million (over $4 million at current exchange) a year and you add severance pay on top, it quickly adds up," she said.

The Labor Relations Court that presided over Monday's hearing has yet to decide whether it can treat Galliano's case as a simply employee/employer dispute because of the nature of his relationship with Dior. The company's lawyer Jean Néret said Galliano was "no ordinary employee. In fact, I would go as far as saying he wasn't an employee at all," he said. "The complexity of his various contracts is sharply at odds with the image of a poor, defenseless employee which the opposing party is trying to project."

Naomi Campbell is suing The Daily Telegraph over an article last month that claimed she made plans for an elephant polo tournament in India.

Campbell had reportedly organized the games as part of a lavish birthday party she threw for her boyfriend, Russian real estate mogul Vladimir Doronin, at a 15th-century fort in Jodhpur last month.

"The simple truth is that there was no plan for elephant polo," said the supermodel's lawyer Gideon Benaim. "Ms. Campbell did not cancel it because it was never going to happen in the first place. We have as yet no idea where the false claims originated from; perhaps the Telegraph will let us know in due course."

The real luxuries at the party included a live performance by Diana Ross and private planes chartered to fly in guests like Kate Moss and Edward Enninful. But animal rights groups blasted Campbell when the Telegraph claimed the party would also include elephant polo — with three celebrity attendees to a team — and Campbell roundly denied the allegations. The paper has since removed the story from its website.

It's not known what kind of damages Campbell's suit seeks, but when she sued The Daily Mirror for invasion of privacy in 2001, the case was eventually settled for £500,000 —about $806,000 at current exchange.

Two very powerful women have made a very public showing of support for Tory Burch, whose ex-husband Chris Burch sued her last month over disputes between their businesses.

"The person who has been at every single appointment over the years is Tory," says Anna Wintour in the December issue of Vanity Fair. "Tory is the one who has always talked to us about her aspirations, and her ideas for growth, how she saw the brand, asked advice on people she might want to bring in — it's always been, as far as we're concerned, 100 percent Tory's business, and we've never had anything to do with Chris."

In his suit, Chris accuses Tory and her management team of interfering with the development of Chris's year-old retail concept, C. Wonder. It also tries to guarantee that Chris will be able to sell his shares in Tory's company and asks that Tory be removed from her own board of directors.

Rumors circulated for months that Tory would sue Chris because of similarities between C. Wonder and her designer label, which they founded together in 2004. Chris beat Tory to it when he filed his suit in October. But Diane von Furstenberg says his attempt to sabotage Tory's business won't prove successful.

"What I find bizarre and nasty, and can't possibly finish well for him, is that he is . . . hurting [her business] by sabotaging it, by copying it," the designer said. "I don't understand."

John Galliano is believed to have sued Dior for €15 million (about $18.8 million at current exchange) in a French labor court.

According to The Daily Telegraph, Galliano has filed an employee/employer dispute with the Paris Conseil des prud'hommes, an industrial tribunal that hears cases regarding employment contracts. While details of Galliano's complaint to the court are not known, his hearing is scheduled for Feb. 4, 2013.

Dior dismissed Galliano last March after he was accused of making anti-Semitic remarks in a Paris bar. Last week, the newly installed French President Francois Hollande stripped Galliano of his membership in the country's Legion of Honor.

Model Liza Irizarry says she plans to sue Selita Ebanks for assault and battery, claiming the Victoria's Secret Angel punched her in the face and broke her nose outside a Miami nightclub last year.

Irizarry, who works for Telemundo, says she kissed Ebanks's boyfriend on the cheek in greeting when she saw him in front of the Dream club in Miami. She alleges that a drunken Ebanks did not react well to her salutation. "When she saw me, she said, 'Don't be kissing my man," Irizarry said in an interview. "That's when she hit me on the nose. I went to swing back; that's when all her friends jumped in. I felt hair-pulling and fists coming at me."

Irizarry says the nose injury required surgery days later. Her suit will seek damages covering pain, suffering, and medical costs.

Ebanks's lawyer, Paul Rothenberg, said the suit "is nine months old and completely without merit" and called Irizarry's claims "baseless."

Guess CEO Paul Marciano said that a judge vindicated his company in its trademark infringement case against Gucci when she decided that Guess should pay just $4.7 million in damages instead of the $300 million Gucci originally sued for.

In a statement, Marciano said Judge Shira Scheindlin's decision "definitely confirmed . . . that this case should have never gone to three years of litigation and trial." Scheindlin wrote that Gucci's claims of how much business Guess had taken from them by allegedly copying its designs over the last two decades was "highly speculative." Marciano largely agreed, calling the entire lawsuit "unconscionable by its scope."

"They 'forgot' to claim certain trademark rights that Guess used for 23 years . . . and the court sided with Guess," Marciano said. "When they found certain issues, they waited not months but years before acting and never wrote a letter, sent an email or picked up the phone to say, 'We have an issue.' That never happened."

Marciano said Guess is "extremely satisfied," and pointed out that Gucci itself has been accused of copying other designers.

"Gucci maybe should look at their own designs and inspirations when it comes to other brands of who they get inspired by," he said. "Everyone will remember Roberto Cavalli's statement from WWD on Feb. 24, 2012, that Gucci basically copied his entire collection of 2010. Gucci never responded to that."

Gucci initiated the lawsuit in 2009, claiming that Guess concocted a "calculated scheme" to knock off its designs and did so over the course of several decades. After years of legal volleys, the case went to trial in March.

>> Alexander Wang has again denied claims that he operated a sweatshop, and said the former employee suing the company for doing so only orchestrated the lawsuit to get even with the company for firing him.

A spokesman for Wang told WWD that Wenyu Lu, whose suit against Wang and his brother Dennis claims he was forced to work up to 15-hour shifts without breaks, that Lu only made these claims against the company in retaliation. The spokesman said Lu was dismissed for bullying other employees, something that the company refused to tolerate.

"The claims regarding sweatshop conditions are completely untrue," the spokesman said. "In reality, this case was filed by an individual who was let go by the company as a result of serious harassment issues. We stand by our decision to promote a safe workplace environment for all employees regardless of false claims that may be waged against us in retaliation."

The story Lu's lawsuit told claims he was fired because he applied for worker's compensation after sustaining injuries on the job. The spokesman didn't address Flor Duante, another former employee who's suing the company and claims she was fired because she complained about having to work long hours.

Lu's suit was originally filed in Queens Supreme Court, but was refiled in Federal Court on Friday. Lawyers for Alexander Wang now have 20 days to reply to Lu and Duante's allegations in court.

KFC's Kentucky Grilled Chicken made quite the headlines when it first hit the market — and the media attention doesn't look like it's about to stop. Yesterday vegetarian advocacy group Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, or PCRM, announced its plans to sue KFC, alleging the chain failed to warn customers that its grilled chicken contains a carcinogen.The cancer-causing compound in question? PhIP, an amino that can be found in grilled meat. PCRM says it submitted samples to an independent lab that confirmed the presence of the carcinogenic compound in all pieces.

The suit follows a similar 2008 PCRM case against McDonald's, Burger King, Chick fil-A, Chili's, Applebee's, Outback Steakhouse, and TGI Friday's. Burger King, the only chain that wound up settling with the advocacy group, now posts signs inside its California locations warning against the possible presence of PhIP.

Do you believe these findings? Are they enough to deter you from eating Kentucky Grilled Chicken?

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She may have a famous comedian for a husband, but that's not the only reason Jessica Seinfeld is laughing all the way to the bank. Yesterday, a federal judge tossed out another author's claims that Seinfeld had copied from her cookbook. Seinfeld made a name for herself with Deceptively Delicious, a cookbook that encourages tricking kids into eating healthier food.

Six months before Seinfeld's tome was published, Missy Chase Lapine, author of kiddie tome The Sneaky Chef, warned Seinfeld not to print Deceptively Delicious, citing content similarities. When the book hit the press, Lapine sued the Seinfelds on counts of defamation and plagiarism.The judge ruled that the works are distinct, and that Jessica's book has a "completely different feel." She did leave open claims of defamation against the defendant's husband, Jerry Seinfeld, who made fun of Lapine on Letterman.

While Jerry Seinfeld probably shouldn't cracked a public joke about Lapine, I believe the right decision was made — but maybe that's just because I'm partial to the Seinfelds. Do you think justice was served?