A Brief Ruling : Inventor of Glowing Lingerie Gets $175,000

A Los Angeles jury got to the bottom of the glow-in-the-dark panties controversy Monday, leaving a local garment manufacturer $175,000 lighter.

Phosphorescent lingerie inventor Mark Graham was awarded compensatory damages from underwear maker Joe Hara as jurors ruled that Hara had stolen Graham’s idea for glowing bras and bustiers.

But the Superior Court panel paused only briefly before refusing to award punitive damages to Graham--now a 41-year-old Nashville songwriter.

The verdicts came after a two-week trial, during which Judge Lillian Stevens repeatedly ordered courtroom lights turned off so a parade of frilly lingerie could be shown.

At one point, sixth-graders who wandered into the courtroom on a field trip giggled as glowing panties were displayed. Another time, Graham’s lawyer, Lawrence S. Cohen, drew laughs from the jury as he held a glowing teddy upside-down and then crashed into the courtroom blackboard as he groped for the light switch.

Hara’s attorney, Richard Levy, said the judgment virtually wipes out Hara’s 6-year-old company, which produces the Desiree line of lingerie. It employs two dozen workers.

“This is going to be a very big precedent in the fashion industry,” said Hara, 41. He warned that other novice designers will think they invented a certain style and then claim exclusive rights to it.

Graham said he thought up his luminous lingerie idea in 1991 and asked Hara to manufacture it for him. But he said Hara backed out--only to begin producing his own glowing apparel the next year.

Hara contended that he started selling his own phosphorescent lingerie only after Graham backed out of the deal.

Graham said the episode has left him with a less-than-glowing appreciation of the garment industry.

“I’m still interested in selling these,” he said. “But maybe I’m not cut out for this business.”