For the better part of a year, W.R. Berkley Corp. gave no indication it gave a hoot about a blogger”™s inflammatory posts blasting its treatment of a former employee.
Once that blogger posted W.R. Berkley”™s owl logo last month alongside one of those posts, however, the Greenwich-based insurance carrier swooped in.
W.R. Berkley filed suit in federal court claiming it has suffered financial harm in California blogger Kimberly Urban”™s use of its logo and photos that the company says are its property.
Rather than suing for libel or defamation, however, which would require proving Urban”™s statements are false, W.R. Berkley confined its legal claim to copyright infringement. Attorneys generally agree that defamation lawsuits are difficult to win and that the sector is getting new attention given the rapid adoption of social media.
W.R. Berkley argues that by using its logo, Urban jeopardized the good will the company has built up and even states “Urban”™s use of the B Logo falsely suggests ”¦ approval by Berkley of Urban”™s services.”
Urban has spent the year venting over a series of moves against an employee that would make any HR professional blush, if true.
Asked whether W.R. Berkley considered a defamation lawsuit, a spokeswoman the company does not comment on litigation, except to say in this case that W.R. Berkley “takes its infringement upon its intellectual property seriously and will fully protect its rights.”
Since last summer and continuing past the March date when W.R. Berkley filed its lawsuit, Urban has been describing online what she calls “a story that involves terminations, private investigations, the DFEH (Department of Fair Employment and Housing), lies, incompetence, lawsuits, and the eventual removal of an entire human resources department.” At deadline, Urban had yet to file an answer to W.R. Berkley”™s lawsuit in court.
Urban”™s posts revolve around a woman named Chrysti Corkill and Preferred Employers Insurance Co., a San Diego-based W.R. Berkley subsidiary that underwrites workers”™ compensation insurance. In June 2010, Corkill filed discrimination charges with a California employment department, then followed up the next January with a lawsuit on W.R. Berkley and Preferred Employers Insurance.
Corkill was a medical provider network coordinator for PEIC, having joined the company in 2006. By early 2010, she says she was on medical leave to deal with anxiety and depression, with Urban her benefits analyst. Corkill says PEIC gave her a choice of returning to work full time that April or being terminated, which it subsequently did on the argument that her position was of a sufficient specialized nature that it required a full-time worker.
Corkill is suing for wrongful termination, discrimination on basis of a mental disability and “failure to engage in the interactive process,” a California law under which companies must make good-faith efforts to accommodate employees.
For its part, W.R. Berkley wants an injunction against further use of its copyrighted images ”“ and treble damages in an amount it did not immediately specify.
