Lauren Brenner, owner of Pure Power Boot Camp, New York, plans to franchise her military-style boot camp now that a judge has ruled on the lawsuit against two of her former employees. Photo courtesy of Pure Power Boot Camp.

Two former Marines must pay a $246,000 judgment to their former employer, Pure Power Boot Camp Inc., New York, after a judge found they had breached their duty of loyalty.

Lauren Brenner, founder of Pure Power Boot Camp, alleged that her former employees, Ruben Dario Belliard and Alexander Kenneth Fell, had stolen her business model, customers, and confidential and commercially sensitive information (including her start-up manual, operations manual and business plan for franchising the concept) when they started Warrior Fitness Boot Camp in 2008.

The judge in the case, Theodore H. Katz of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York, dismissed 12 of the 13 claims in the suit, including several counterclaims brought by the defendants against the plaintiff.

The one claim not dismissed was that Belliard and Fell breached their duty of loyalty. Katz ordered Belliard to return $55,196 in salary that he earned at Pure Power while he was planning the Warrior Fitness business as well as punitive damages of $110,393. Fell was ordered to repay $40,177 in salary and punitive damages of $40,177 to the plaintiff. The court allowed Belliard and Fell to keep their company open.

Carolyn D. Richmond, partner at Fox Rothschild LLP and co-chair of the firm’s Hospitality Practice Group, represented Warrior Fitness. Richmond and her clients have not yet decided whether to appeal the decision, which came Monday and runs 148 pages, she says.

“It was obviously a very long process, but ultimately, we are very satisfied with the result,” Richmond says, adding that the plaintiff had wanted more than $1 million and for Warrior Fitness to be shut down. “We wanted to fight for the right for Warrior to keep their business open.”

When contacted about the case, Brenner had just received the decision and had not read through the entire document. However, she had read the judge’s decision about the loyalty judgment.

“Did I win? Yes, it shows that I won,” Brenner says. “They stole from me. They did all this to me. I will publish their deposition of how they got caught. That’s my vindication. Am I disappointed that I only got a couple hundred thousand? Yes.”

She says the judgment amount is nothing for a business that is worth more than $1 million and for all the legal fees she has had to pay. While Belliard and Fell were allowed to build their business during the three-year legal process, Brenner says she put growth on hold and found it difficult to hire former Marines because she no longer trusted them.

Pure Power Boot Camp, which Brenner opened in December 2003, was modeled after U.S. Marine Corps training facilities. Brenner, a former Wall Street trader, gained media attention with the concept, appearing on “The Today Show,” “The CBS Early Show” and other TV programs promoting her concept.

Belliard worked as an independent contractor at Pure Power in April 2005 but was hired as a full-time drill instructor (the term used for the company’s boot camp leaders) in July 2006. Belliard soon became the head drill instructor and was left in charge when Brenner was not at the facility, according to court documents. Fell began as an independent contractor in August 2005 upon Belliard’s recommendation, becoming a full-time drill instructor in September 2006.

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