Christopher Kimball responds to the ATK lawsuit

December 18, 2016 by
 |  5 Comments  |  Leave Comment

 America's Test Kitchen cookbooks

Last month we reported on the lawsuit filed by America’s Test Kitchen against Christopher Kimball where ATK alleged that Kimball  “literally and conceptually  ripped off America’s Test Kitchen.” Kimball recently filed his response to the lawsuit, and it paints a very different picture of what happened.

The article lists the highlights of Kimball’s response, which was filed just a few days ago. Not only does Kimball disagree with the major points of the lawsuit, he has filed a counterclaim against ATK, alleging that it is he who has been damaged by ATK’s “defamatory” and “baseless” accusations against him and his company, Milk Street.

In his response, Kimball denies that he ever signed any type of noncompete agreement that would limit his ability to create a business that is similar in concept to ATK. He also asserts that ATK knew that he was creating a new company and that the company gave him its blessing to do so. Kimball also goes on the offensive against ATK, arguing that the website they created (whywearesuingchristopherkimball.com) contains several false statements. “ATK has exploited this litigation, using it as an excuse for its nationwide media campaign to defame Kimball by improperly imputing criminal conduct to him and otherwise impugning his character and integrity,” the response alleges.

It seems that Kimball is prepared to fully litigate this matter. A long, drawn out lawsuit could be detrimental to both organizations, but for now it appears to be headed down that path.

Category: Food Biz People

Post a comment

5 Comments

  • sir_ken_g  on  December 18, 2016

    Don't care for either one of them.

  • chefgodfrey  on  December 19, 2016

    Really unfortunate. I'm very fond of both.

  • Rinshin  on  December 19, 2016

    Ive liked ATK/Cook's Illustrated recipes and Christopher Kimball. But, I never liked their Asian recipes. They just don't taste good. I know they are trying to come up with recipes with ingredients that's very easy to find at local grocery stores in more remote areas of US, but I wonder if they should not get better recipe testers or recipe developers for those recipes. Their American inspired recipes work very well though and I do use them often. My hope is that Milk Street go beyond ATK in those weak areas and looks like they might with Christopher Kimball taking the crew to Chiang Mai etc and asking readers for next location. I've tried two of Milk Street's recipes and while one worked really well, the other one was a flop.

  • SusieLee  on  December 22, 2016

    Their very public and very nasty battle has sullied both sides…taken away what could have been a doubly pleasurably experience. I say to both entities…get over it and act like mature adults

  • TrishaCP  on  December 28, 2016

    I agree with SusieLee. This is just messy and sordid and no one is going to come out of this looking good.

Seen anything interesting? Let us know & we'll share it!

Categories

Archives