ST. LOUIS – SKU Foods LLC is being sued in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri by an entrepreneur who alleges she was duped into selling her share of the Soozie’s Doozies cookie business.
The complaint by Arkansas resident Marjorie Susie Wilson of against SKU Foods, its chief operating officer Robert Stanton and chief executive Olivia Kelvin was filed May 14. The lawsuit is asking the court to void a 2007 agreement in which she sold the business to SKU Foods. She is also seeking an unspecified amount of damages, including “all profits lost over the past decade, and possibly in future years.”
According to court documents, Wilson started making cookies in the early 1990s and worked thousands of hours perfecting her recipe. She launched her business in 2003, calling it Soozie’s Doozies Gourmet Cookies and registered the “Soozie’s Doozies” trademark. The cookies were sold at Dierbergs Markets and other stores.
In September 2007, Stanton reportedly approached Wilson expressing interest in helping her business expand. The suit alleges Stanton “consistently told Ms. Wilson that she would ‘always’ be owner of the Soozie’s Doozies business.” He also reportedly compared her to the founder of the “Famous Amos” cookies brand and “Colonel Sanders” of “Kentucky Fried Chicken.” Wilson claims she signed the sale agreement believing she was keeping 10 percent ownership.
But in October she learned she had no ownership interest. The suit alleges that Kelvin and Stanton “consistently acted as though Ms. Wilson was a part-owner of SKU,” even making payments that reportedly represented 10 percent of SKU’s profits.
“Because of the value to her of the Soozie’s Doozie business, Ms. Wilson never would have entered the Purchase Agreement if she had been aware that Mr. Stanton had not made her a 10 percent owner of SKU,” the complaint said.
Wilson is represented by Daniel F. Harvath of the Harvarth Law Group LLC in Webster Groves.