A Long John Silver’s franchisee on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Captain D’s and its parent company, Sagittarius Restaurants of Nashville, Tenn.
The lawsuit accuses the fast-casual seafood chain of deceptive trade practices, misrepresentation and violating consumer law, among other charges.
According to court documents filed in the Circuit Court for Knox County, Tenn., and obtained by SeafoodSource, Captain D’s in July allegedly ran advertisements offering to honor coupons from local Long John Silver’s locations that had closed. The text in the Knoxville News Sentinel ads read: “With the closing of Long John Silver’s we will honor any competitor coupons and be happy to serve you.”
However, according to Long John Silver’s franchisee D-Sea of Lexington, Ky., no stores in the Knoxville area had closed. The franchisee operates 14 locations, and one in Loudon County, a market separate from Knoxville, had closed.
In the court documents, D-Sea said, “The untrue and intentionally misleading statements in the advertisement placed for the defendants were calculated to harm the business and goodwill of Long John Silver’s and to benefit the business and goodwill of the defendants, and did, in fact, do so.”
It continued to say that the statements in the ad were made intentionally in an effort to gain an unfair competitive advantage.
D-Sea is seeking USD 260,000 (EUR 176462) in compensatory damages, undetermined punitive damages, court costs and lawyers fees.
