In the sixth and final season of “Better Call Saul,” Craig and Betsy Kettleman open Sweet Liberty Tax Services to help the good, freedom-loving people in their community wrest every penny they had overpaid to the IRS. The husband-and-wife team conveyed that promise by posting an inflatable Statue of Liberty outside their business, draping their trailer in a U.S. flag, and plastering Lady Liberty and exploding fireworks on a mural inside their office.
All the trappings of Sweet Liberty Tax Services, a fictional business in the hit TV show, hit a little too close to home for Liberty Tax Service, a real tax preparation business with more than 2,500 locations across the United States and Canada.
In August 2022, Liberty sued AMC Networks, which airs “Better Call Saul,” alleging the TV network had defamed it while infringing on its trademark. On Monday, Judge Paul Gardephe in the U.S. District Court for Southern New York dismissed the lawsuit, ruling that, while the “patriotic imagery” AMC used to depict the Kettlemans’ business closely resembled Liberty’s, such imagery had artistic relevance to the show, adding that the tax business hadn’t provided evidence that the show had confused viewers into mistaking the fictional business for its own.
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Peter Siachos, a lawyer representing Liberty Tax Service, said that he and his client “disagree with Judge Gardephe’s decision and are evaluating all options, including an appeal of the dismissed claim and filing of the remaining claims in state court.”
AMC and the network’s lawyers did not respond to a request for comment.
Viewers of “Better Call Saul,” a prequel of the show “Breaking Bad,” were introduced to the Kettlemans in 2015 during Season 1. In the inaugural episode, the couple is considering hiring a lawyer after Craig Kettleman uses his position as the county treasurer to embezzle $1.6 million in taxpayer money. To achieve his own ends, lawyer Jimmy McGill, the protagonist played by Bob Odenkirk, all but forces Craig to take a plea deal requiring that he return the money and endure a 16-month prison sentence.
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More than seven years later, viewers are reintroduced to the Kettlemans in the second episode of Season 6. By then, Craig has finished his prison sentence, and McGill, who’s since legally changed his name to the eponymous “Saul Goodman,” finds the husband-and-wife team relegated to a trailer in the New Mexico desert. A Statue of Liberty inflatable welcomes customers to their tax preparation business housed in a trailer painted with a U.S. flag. Inside, exploding fireworks and a second Statue of Liberty are plastered on the wall. Meanwhile, the Kettlemans are swindling customers by filing accurate tax returns with the IRS while giving dummy versions to clients. The doctored ones show that the federal government owes them far less money than in reality, allowing the Kettlemans to pocket the difference.
Share this articleShareIn court filings, Liberty claimed that Sweet Liberty Tax Services “appears out of nowhere” and has no connection to the show’s storyline. In doing so, AMC created a business that was “virtually identical and indistinguishable from an actual Liberty Tax Service location.”
“Out of all the names Defendants could have used for the tax business portrayed in Episode 2, they decided not to be original at all, but instead rip off the famous Liberty Tax trademarks, which have been used for over 25 years,” Liberty’s lawsuit alleged.
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Through its lawyers, AMC wrote in court filings that the name of the Kettlemans’ business, “coupled with an office covered with gaudy symbols of Americana … and a comically distorted Statue of Liberty inflatable, is richly ironic,” according to Gardephe’s ruling.
The judge sided with AMC, writing that, given the character’s recent release from prison, “the reference to ‘Sweet Liberty’ is clearly ironic and closely related to Craig Kettleman’s role in the series.
And, while such patriotic imagery “closely resembles” what Liberty uses in the real world, it does so with a completely different aim, the judge wrote. AMC is using it to tell a story about morally dubious characters swindling people under the guise of patriotism; Liberty does so in the real world to market its tax preparation services, he added. Liberty presented no evidence “suggesting that viewers of [the TV show] will not understand that ‘Sweet Liberty Tax Services’ is a fictional business operated by fictional characters in a work of fiction,” the judge wrote.
Gardephe dismissed Liberty’s case without prejudice, giving the company a chance to pursue it in state court.
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