A US court ruled in June that Peet and Melany Viljoen must pay the real Tammy Taylor R71 370 400 ($4 million) for statutory damages caused by their use of her trademark and breach of contract. However, the court denied her claim of $22 176 000 (R392 537 200) for lost profit because she did not prove the loss.
Tammy Taylor, founder and owner of Tammy Taylor Nails in the US, announced on Instagram that she is suing the Viljoens and filed a lawsuit in the US District Court for the Southern District of California in April last year, accusing her former licensees of continuing to use her trademarks after the licence ended.
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Melany Viljoen’s response to Tammy Taylor suing them
Melany Viljoen then responded with her own video on Instagram, saying as soon as they started creating their own content, Taylor insisted that she stays the face of Tammy Taylor in South Africa.
She insists in the video that they hold the legitimate registration and ownership of the Tammy Taylor name in South Africa. She says they have not rebranded because they invested too much in it.
In September 2023 she said in a statement to The Citizen that Taylor intends a “brutal takeover of the empire Melany Viljoen built”. This came after letters from Taylor’s lawyer, James McQueen, instructed her to cease and desist from using the Tammy Taylor name as she is no longer a licensee or distributor of products.
According to the default judgment in the US court, the Viljoens did not attend or defend the case. Judge Cynthia Bashant, Chief Judge of the United States District Court, ordered that Melany and Peet Viljoen’s US Trademark Registration is cancelled and no longer registered with the US Patent and Trademark Office, making it null and void.
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Viljoens must stop using Tammy Taylor name and IP
The court also entered a permanent injunction against the Viljoens and “each of their officers, agents, servants, employees and attorneys and all others in active concert or participation with them who receive actual notice of this Order”, saying they are not allowed to:
- directly or indirectly use and must immediately stop using the names “Tammy Taylor” or “Tammy Taylor Nails,” or TTN’s oval double ‘T’ mark;
- operate or hold themselves or their nail care business out to the public or others as being sponsored by, approved by, affiliated with, authorised by, or connected with Tammy Taylor Nails or make any written or oral statement to this effect;
- offer for sale, solicit sales, advertise, or sell any products or services in any medium under any mark, name, symbol, logo, or other indicia that incorporates or is confusingly similar to “Tammy Taylor” or “Tammy Taylor Nails”;
- offer for sale, solicit sales, advertise, or sell any nail care products, services, or retail stores in any medium, under any mark, name, symbol, logo, or other indicia that is likely to cause confusion or deceive people to wrongly believe they their products or services originate from Tammy Taylor Nails, or that they are authorised or are endorsed or sponsored or connected in some way to Tammy Taylor Nails.
ALSO READ: Real Tammy Taylor owns her trademark, not the Viljoens – expert
Viljoens ordered to stop using any reference to Tammy Taylor
The judge also ordered the Viljoens to contact any domain name registrar, social media website, such as Instagram or Facebook, to abandon all domain names or Instagram handles or Facebook profiles containing the words “Tammy Taylor,” “Tammy Taylor Nails,” or any of its trademarks, including the domain name http://tammytaylornails.co.za.
The Viljoens must also remove or delete any reference to Tammy Taylor Nails or “Tammy Taylor” from their social media, including from Instagram and Facebook.
In addition, they must contact any internet service provider to purge any domain name server information from any website addresses which have been used to promote their previous connection with Tammy Taylor Nails and contact any search engines to delete references to their formerly Tammy Taylor Nails-connected nail care businesses.
The Viljoens must also remove and destroy any signage in their possession containing the Tammy Taylor Nails name or trademarks and all existing printed materials, including business cards, stationery, envelopes, signs, advertisements, forms, contracts, promotional items and any other materials that identify the Viljoens or their nail care business as operating under the names “Tammy Taylor” or “Tammy Taylor Nails”.
According to the judgment, Taylor could renew her motion for a default judgment regarding the South African trademark or her request for damages in the form of lost profits by 16 July.
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Tammy Taylor can still claim damages for lost profits
Taylor claimed damages for lost profits as compensation for the Viljoens’ trademark infringement as well as the breach of contract claims and calculated the damages to be $22 million because she argued that the Viljoens “ran the agreed-upon franchises in South Africa so terribly that the destruction of the Tammy Taylor reputation reached around the world to the US and now Tammy Taylor Nails can no longer embark on its planned US-based franchising programme”.
Therefore, Taylor wanted the Viljoens to pay for “all the hypothetical profits of the first 10 years of this hypothetical programme, should it have launched in the US”.
According to the judgment, Taylor introduced no evidence that any damage to the brand’s reputation in the US would be so extensive to preclude all domestic franchising possibilities for the next 10 years.
However, the court granted Taylor’s request for the maximum in statutory damages of $4 million against the Viljoens for counterfeiting the US-registered trademarks.
ALSO READ: Judge orders Viljoens to immediately stop using Tammy Taylor trademark
We asked the Viljoens’ lawyer, Hein Wiese, on Monday if he can confirm that the Viljoens have left the country and if they left him any instructions about what should happen to Tammy Taylor Global Franchising.
Wiese was their lawyer in the most recent South African case where a woman sued them to get back the R600 000 she paid for a franchise that never materialised.
In a reply to The Citizen’s questions, he said he cannot confirm or deny that the Viljoens now live in the US because his office did not assist them in relocating. He also said he could not comment on any instructions received from Peet or Melany Viljoen as they are bound by attorney/client privilege.
“We do, however, distance ourselves from any racist comments made by Peet and/or Melany Viljoen and we were not aware of any participation by Peet and/or Melany Viljoen in any interview or recording.”
The Citizen asked the Viljoens to confirm where they are and to comment on the US judgment, but received no response so far. Their comment will be added if received.
