I just wanted to make this clear that this is Kurt, no one else who works here or ever has is responsible for what we say in this blog post.  All repercussions should be placed squarely on me. 

When I was growing up, I only got into any real trouble in schools for one thing, stopping bullies myself.  From about age 8 on, I was bigger than most kids in size, both weight and height.  I didn’t keep growing and am a little taller than average, but I was not a small frail kid.  I had been.  And I couldn’t see someone strong picking on someone weaker without doing something. 

I would stop it, and maybe even push or punch back. I know I shouldn’t have done the latter, but I wasn’t going to let them get away with it.  Now if there was an adult nearby, I might have gotten them involved, but school bullies are usually smart enough to not do that. 

Well, it’s obvious based upon the areas of law I have ever practiced in, that I am still doing that.  I regularly face large, multinational companies, with huge internal and external legal departments and law firms.  And the same is true for government bureaucracies. 

At the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC), the Claims Service Specialists (CSS) are the ones who handle the day-to-day operations of claims.  They are organized into teams with a team leader supervising them.  And for the most part, while they have marching orders to not be so helpful, most of them are at least human, but there are exceptions.  And my parents taught me to start with respect and kindness until it’s painfully obvious that won’t work.  So, I start with please & thank you’s and assuming I don’t know better until they show me I do.

So, several years ago, I had a team leader there bring her daughter to me as a client.  She told her daughter in front of me at the initial appointment, you are here because there are two Kurts.  Grizzly Bear Kurt and Teddy bear Kurt.  Teddy Bear Kurt has sent emails and letters to me and those above me at BWC praising my team members when he feels they are doing their job well for Kurt’s clients.  And then there is Grizzly bear Kurt who will call up the Governor and scream at them.  It was really the Chief of Staff as I had been interviewed by them twice for a position that advocates for workers in dealing with the BWC. And she is right. 

BWC has tens of billions of dollars in assets and an army of good lawyers in house and at the State Attorney General’s office.  And we also must fight large, very well-funded for profit companies with millions or billions in assets and a huge army of lawyers on their side.  And yes, we are talking about big ones like Stellantis (Chrysler/Jeep), General Motors, Amazon, etc.  who can and have taken our clients causes up to the Ohio Supreme Court.

Well, a large national corporation is coming into Ohio and being a bully, and many of us are standing up to them.  That is Texas based, cultural phenomenon, gas and convenience store giant Buc-ee’s.  For 40 years they have been a huge employer, creating many jobs and providing goods and services people need and love. 

And if you have a brand name, trademark or other intellectual property you have to defend it.  If a company doesn’t fight attempts to use them, they literally can lose them.  For example, Band Aid was a trademarked name for bandages. But the owner let too many people get away with using it in similar products.  And they now can’t defend that name.  Anyone can use it. 

But Buc-ee’s has gone to a new set of extremes.  Recently John Oliver’s funny current events and comedy show “This Week Tonight” did a segment about just how far the chain has gone.  They use a trademarked logo of a grinning cartoon beaver, facing sideways, wearing a baseball cap.  It has a particular color scheme and look.  And it has every right to protect that.  It is ironic that according to the research Oliver’s show did that Buc-ee’s CEO based that iconic Beaver on a commercial cartoon one from his childhood that he didn’t have the rights to.  But they have spent millions of dollars creating and spreading their brand in ads, merchandise, etc.

But they have become notorious for suing small businesses with claims that are frivolous claiming infringement on their trademark.  Any business that dares to use a beaver; other animals including alligators, koalas, and moose, with or without ballcaps, facing the same way or directly at the viewer.  They have claimed the color scheme, the idea of a logo with a border, the way the name is pronounced being similar, etc. have entitled them to make the company change their logo or pay huge penalties. 

Now if a chain like them, started using a logo that was a spot on representation of theirs, they would have a good point, but they have gone after small businesses selling underwear, restaurants, local carry outs, etc.  And Oliver and his team threw down the gauntlet. They took a character they already had used in other segments on frivolous lawsuits, and created a logo with “Buc off” on it, selling merchandise of all kinds with that logo, the proceeds are going to a anti-hunger non-profit. 

Well, that fight has come to Ohio.  Buc-ee’s has opened their first Ohio location and they filed earlier this year against am independent gas station that uses a Moose named Mickey and then a local, Beavercreek Ohio store.  The gas station does not use a Beaver.  The local store uses a Beaver who looks nothing like Buc-ee’s and again the name of the city is Beavercreek, population 46,549 and just East of Dayton. 

Well, the businesses of Beavercreek have rallied around Beaver’s Mini Mart.  They have generated their own Beaver mascot logos, nothing like Buc-ee.  They are selling items they make with a cut to the legal defense fund for the store.  And even a local Dayton law firm, a friendly competitor, has done the same. 

Well, I have no connection to a beaver, but I did go to an undergraduate school with a kangaroo as a logo, and they are tough creatures in the wild, and one of my nicknames as a child, thanks to my first name and the first initial was Kurty as in Kurt Young.  And since I can’t stand a bully, we are joining in with this blog post.  Take a look at our new logo and graphic for this post.  As John Oliver did, many of us are poking the bear err beaver. 

I was really looking forward to their brisket and other Texas and southern delicacies, and we can all use some lower gas prices these days.  But if they want to come after every Ohio business using an animal logo, wearing a baseball cap, in the words of John Oliver –“ you know what? Bring it the f— on,”. 

We spend our days out resourced, out gunned, and with a legal system where for the last forty years the people who care about corporate profits over people have controlled the Ohio Supreme Court, the Ohio Senate, the Ohio House, the Governor’s mansion, and therefore the heads of the Ohio BWC and Industrial Commission, and we say every day is bring it on. We won’t let them beat up on our clients and their doctors without giving them a fight to the end. And the same goes to large corporations with billions in profits.