Dashboard Shade Inventor Target of $7-Million Suit

Abraham Levy, the Westlake Village resident who holds a patent for the popular cardboard shades that shield auto dashboards, lost a legal round in his bid to stop a Phoenix wholesaler from selling the shades without his approval.

Levy also is now the target of a suit filed by the wholesaler, L & M Enterprises, which is seeking $7 million in damages.

Levy’s company, Car Cool, does not make the shades, but licenses other firms to manufacture and market the products. Those companies then pay Levy a royalty fee for using his design.

More than 25 million shades have been sold since they became popular two years ago, according to Levy, who repeatedly has gone to court to block unauthorized sales of his shades.

Levy, 59, had asked a federal judge to find L & M in contempt of court for continuing to sell the shades, claiming that L & M violated an earlier court order that prohibited the wholesaler from selling the shades without Levy’s approval.

But L & M’s owner, Lynda Goldman, contended that the sales were legitimate because she signed a form letter, sent by Levy last year, that in effect constituted a licensing agreement.

On Sept. 11, U. S. District Judge Charles Hardy in Phoenix ruled that L & M should not be held in contempt of court because, he said, there were indications that Levy had entered into the license agreement.

Levy then filed another lawsuit Oct. 2 in Phoenix, asking the court to declare that no license agreement exists. A hearing date in that case has not yet been set.

Goldman, meanwhile, alleges that Levy broke the licensing agreement by denying that it existed and by bringing the contempt-of-court action. Goldman’s suit also alleges that Levy committed fraud by indicating to L & M that it was a licensee and then suing L & M for unauthorized sales of the shades.

Levy’s lawyer, Joseph Golant, termed L & M’s suit “totally without merit.”