Luxottica Group SpA et al. v. Gallaghers Olde Fashion Services, Inc. et al. (D. Mass. 22-cv-30054).

Luxottica sued Basic Plus, which runs Chicopee’s Basic Plus Mini Mart convenience store, and Gallaghers Olde Fashion Service, which runs a Sunoco gas station and convenience store in Chicopee, in 2022, asserting that the two were selling counterfeit “Ray-Ban” and “Oakley” sunglasses.  Judge Mastroianni has denied Luxottica’s motion for summary judgment of infringement, finding genuine issues of material fact that precluded judgment.  He noted that the owner and manager of the accused businesses had both testified unequivocally that they never sold sunglasses with any branding.  While Luxottica had strong evidence from private investigators to the contrary, this testimony did create a material issue of fact.  He distinguished cases in which testimony of a party was disregarded because in the cited cases, the party had testified inconsistently such that the testimony was inherently unreliable or because the remainder of the record so clearly weighed against the veracity of the testimony (e.g., video evidence demonstrating that testimony about the event simply could not be true) that no reasonable jury could believe it.  Accordingly, the issue will be determined by a jury.