Johnson Health Tech North America, Inc. v. Grow Fitness Group, Inc.

District Court, W.D. Wisconsin·Decided February 21, 2020·No. 3:17-cv-00834·Unknown

Opinion

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE WESTERN DISTRICT OF WISCONSIN

JOHNSON HEALTH TECH NORTH AMERICA, INC.,

Plaintiff, OPINION AND ORDER v. 17-cv-834-wmc GROW FITNESS GROUP, INC. a/k/a GROW FITNESS, INC., and MATTHEW SEABERG,

Defendants.

In this civil action, plaintiff Johnson Health Tech North America, Inc., asserts various state law claims against defendants Grow Fitness Group, Inc. a/k/a Grow Fitness, Inc. (“Grow Fitness”), and its owner Matthew Seaberg. The clerk’s office previously entered default against Grow Fitness for failing to appear and dispute the claims against it. In a prior opinion and order, the court also granted plaintiff summary judgment on liability with respect to its claim that defendant Seaberg breached his personal guaranty of a promissory note, finding that plaintiff had established the elements of that claim and rejecting defendant Seaberg’s affirmative defenses of duress and unconscionability, while reserving on the issue of damages. (1/7/20 Op. & Order (dkt. #72).) After a telephonic status conference and additional submissions by both parties, the court held a trial on damages on February 18, 2020, at which plaintiff appeared by counsel and its corporate controller Christine Draves and defendant Matthew Seaberg appeared pro se by videoconference from Florida. For the reasons that follow, the court will now award plaintiff $503,795.271 in damages against defendant Seaberg for plaintiff’s breach of his personal guaranty, while also granting plaintiff’s request to dismiss its remaining conversion, civil theft and unjust enrichment claims against Seaberg. (Dkt. #85.) In

addition, the court will grant plaintiff’s renewed motion for default judgment against defendant Grow Fitness (dkt. #82), in the amount of $1,829,834.03, with $503,795.27 of that award owed jointly and severally with defendant Seaberg.

OPINION I. Damages Claim against Seaberg for Breach of Personal Guaranty During the hearing, plaintiff’s corporate controller, Christine Draves, testified in person as to Grow Fitness’s payments on the September 2014 Note, as set forth in Exhibit

3. (See also Draves Decl., Ex. 1 (dkt. #73-1).) Draves also specifically testified and provided evidence in support of plaintiff’s treatment of Grow Fitness’s commission or profit on three, disputed transactions: (1) the Powerhouse deal; (2) the Rollins College deal; and (3) payment of Fitness Fixt invoices.2 In addition to cross-examining Graves, defendant Seaberg testified with respect to plaintiff’s statement of payments, acknowledging that this information was in the control of plaintiff and he had no basis to

1 As described below, this amount reflects the amount of principal and interest due and owing on the promissory note as of January 15, 2020, amounting to $500,749,61, plus interest at a rate of 6% per year from January 15, 2020, until the date of this opinion and order, $3,045.66. 2 In his original objections, Seaberg also argued that JHTNA owed Grow Fitness a commission for another deal involving the University of Central Florida. Seaberg, however, did not maintain this objection in his most recent pre-trial submission; nor did he offer testimony or other evidence in support of this challenge at trial. Moreover, Seaberg’s abandonment of this objection makes sense in light of Draves’ testimony that this sale was canceled. object to its accuracy, other than to challenge plaintiff’s treatment of the three, disputed transactions just noted. As such, the court will limit its review to these three challenges.

A. Powerhouse Deal First, with respect to the Powerhouse deal, plaintiff presented evidence demonstrating that based on the sale of JHTNA products, Grow Fitness earned as

commissions or profits $115,795.00, which reflects the difference between the Matrix invoiced product price and the Grow Fitness price, less the freight (or shipment) expense. (Ex. 18.) Seaberg testified that some of the listed Grow Fitness prices were higher than the prices he negotiated, specifically testifying that he was given a further 5% or 10% discount, but he provided no support for this representation or any quantification of the difference between the calculated commission and his claim as to what should have been

provided. Therefore, the court credits plaintiff’s calculation of the commission earned on the sale of JHTNA Matrix products. Seaberg also pointed to Exhibit 12 -- an unsigned document dated February 12, 2016, which purports to set forth plaintiff JHTNA and defendant Grow Fitness’s agreement that the Powerhouse deal would proceed as a “Marginal Transaction Credit

Transaction,” whereby Grow Fitness would be responsible for certain payments should the customer default. (Ex. 12.) That document specifically, provided: $150,192.00 Recourse from Grow Fitness Group, Inc. profit margin on Matrix $112,470.00 Recourse from Grow Fitness Group, Inc. on non-Matrix products/cost $592,366.00 Total /Lease equipment cost (Id.) From this, Seaberg testified that Grow Fitness was owed $262,000 in profits or commissions from JHTNA as the manufacturer/seller of Matrix products. This document and Draves’ testimony more generally about the structure of this

deal, however, does not support such a finding. On the contrary, there is no dispute that this deal was a “marginal transaction credit agreement,” with United Leasing, Inc., as the lessor. (Ex. 13.) In that capacity, JHTNA only invoiced United Leasing for the equipment JHTNA actually sold as part of the Powerhouse deal and, therefore, JHTNA was only responsible for paying Grow Fitness for any commission (really gross profit) associated

with that portion of the deal. There is some question as to whether Seaberg ultimately provided other non-JHTNA product to Powerhouse “free” as an incentive or under some other discounted arrangement, but to the extent Grow Fitness intended to earn a profit or commissions from the sale of non-Matrix products/cost, then all the documentation suggests that Grow Fitness was required to either seek such payments from United Leasing or from the customer directly. To the extent that Seaberg was confused about this, which

is understandable given the parties’ changing and increasingly strained relationship, it was incumbent upon him to clarify who was billing for non-Matrix product, not to wait years later and then assert that JHTNA should have invoiced for the product as well. Regardless, Seaberg offered no documentary evidence to support his claim that JHTNA was on the hook for the estimated $112,470.00 in “products/cost” for non-Matrix products, nor even the $68,000 that he actually spent to purchase a portion of this product.

As for the discrepancy between the $150,192.00 estimate in Exhibit 12 and the $115,795.00 ultimately assigned to Grow Fitness as commissions or profits on JHTNA’s Matrix product sales, this is the result of: (1) a slight difference between the equipment contemplated to be sold in the February 2016 projection and the invoiced sales as part of the actual Powerhouse purchases in September 2016; and (2) accounting for the cost of freight

or shipment, which reduced the amount of profit on those sales, which Draves credibly testified was consistent with plaintiff’s practices and also set forth in the Independent Sales Agreement (Ex. 4) signed by Seaberg around the same time his commission was calculated as a condition to him receiving the $68,074 wire payment, as discussed below. Based on all this, the court finds that plaintiff has demonstrated by a preponderance of the evidence

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Johnson Health Tech North America, Inc. v. Grow Fitness Group, Inc., (W.D. Wis. 2020).

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