The son of a prominent Lowcountry attorney has been enjoined from using his own name to advertise his legal services. A federal judge ordered George Sink Jr. to refrain from using his name to promote his law firm while a dispute with his father, George Sink Sr., plays out in arbitration.
Sink Sr. founded George Sink, P.A. Injury Lawyers in 1997, and since then, the firm has become well-known as a personal injury firm operating around South Carolina and Georgia. Sink Jr. worked at the firm as an attorney for about a year until his employment was terminated in February 2019. That same month, he founded his own firm, which he called George Sink Law Firm II. Sink Sr. sued, alleging that the use of the name constituted unfair competition, cybersquatting, unfair and deceptive trade practices, and dilution.
On Aug. 9, U.S. District Judge David Norton granted Sink Sr.’s motion for a preliminary injunction to block Sink Jr. from using the name until the dispute is resolved in arbitration, finding that Sink Sr. was likely to succeed on the merits of his case.
Norton found that allowing Sink Jr. to continue marketing his firm under its current name, or use “George Sink” in his email address, would be likely to cause confusion among consumers since the dominant portion of Sink Sr.’s trademark—his name—had acquired substantial goodwill from decades of extensive advertising, whereas the differences in the two firms’ names were not nearly as significant.
“Merely placing a ‘II’ or generic language like [‘law firm’] after a protected mark does not, without more, distinguish it enough to eliminate confusion when the original protected mark is so widely known among consumers,” Norton wrote. “And having an email address that uses only the dominant portion of a protected mark without any distinguishing factors does not indicate to consumers that the holder of that email address is a different business entity than the business that owns the protected mark.”
And I carry it with me like my daddy did
Norton also found that Sink Sr. would be irreparably harmed if the injunction were not granted, whereas the effects of the injunction on Sink Jr. would not be too severe.
“George Sink Jr. will not be prevented from practicing law, but will merely need to clarify to the public that he is a separate business from Sink P.A.,” Norton wrote. “He will be required to change or temporarily remove his website, change or temporarily remove his business Facebook profile, change the infringing email addresses, and change his professional information on the various state bar websites. Given that much of this requested relief can be accomplished with relative ease and may be reversed after a final decision is issued from the Arbitrator, the court finds that the balance of equities weighs in [Sink Sr.’s] favor.”
Few, if any, punches have been pulled in the family feud between Sink Sr., who has become a widely recognized personality through his omnipresent television advertisements and billboard, and his namesake son. In his complaint, Sink Sr. consistently refers to his son as “Ted,” a nickname derived from his middle name, Theodore, whereas Sink Jr. identifies himself using his given name.
Allen Holmes and Cheryl Harris Ledbetter of Gibbs & Holmes in Charleston represents Sink Sr. along with Trudy Robertson, J. Mark Wilson, Kathryn Cole, and Minnie Kim of Moore & Van Allen in Charlotte. Ronald Richter Jr., Eric Bland, and Scott Mongilo of Bland Richter in Charleston represent Sink Jr., along with Timothy St. Clair of Parker Poe in Greenville. Neither side’s attorneys could be reached for comment in time for the print edition of this story.
Follow David Donovan on Twitter @SCLWDonovan