This inventory was specifically designed for Walgreens stores, is or will soon be out of warranty, and is being rendered obsolete due to Walgreens’ wrongful termination these screens cannot be repurposed. The halted deployment has also left Cooler Screens sitting on some $87 million in screens manufactured specifically to fit in Walgreens chiller system doors. Yet, Walgreens repeatedly refused to make any repairs to its faulty infrastructure and directed Cooler Screens to proceed with installations. It says more than $1.3 million in overdue maintenance was identified by third-party, pre-install site surveys. As a result, Walgreens’ aging refrigeration infrastructure was plagued with problems, including leaking refrigerators and coolers, condensation issues, electrical issues, faulty switches, and rust, among other things. Over the years, Walgreens chose not to invest in and neglected its retail store HVAC refrigeration systems. At that point, Cooler Screens had installed Smart Doors in approximately 700 of the 2,500 stores (or approximately 10,300 thousand doors) anticipated by the roll-out.Ĭooler Screens suggests performance issues had to do with the state of the refrigeration systems in Walgreens stores. In the email, Standley also claimed to be concerned about the safety of the doors and demanded that Cooler Screens stop the roll-out and cease installation until the alleged issues were worked out. Standley’s email complained about alleged (a) black doors (b) doors experiencing flickering, blurred, frozen, or distorted images (c) doors with non-functioning out-of-stock indicators (d) doors with condensation/icing (e) non-functioning doors that had to be replaced with non-Smart Doors (f) doors with electrical and/or hinge issues resulting in sparking, smoke, and/or fire and (g) doors not displaying pricing. Pessina forwarded the email to Wasson two days later. Walgreens’ president, John Standley, sent a Septememail to Pessina that copied Brewer. It suggests Walgreens then began a “concerted effort to obstruct Cooler Screens’ performance, declare bogus breaches of the Agreement, and force Cooler Screens to remove the screens and technology” from the Smart Doors. The company, in the filing, says two years of collaboration and mutual interests in the rollout succeeding ended when the new CEO came in. To add insult to injury, Walgreens is now wrongfully demanding that Cooler Screens expend tens of millions of additional dollars to remove all the Smart Door technology from Walgreens stores.Ĭooler Screens’ lawsuit seeks to stop Walgreens from forcing the startup to remove its “smart doors” and is seeking compensatory damages to reimburse it for suggests adds up to more than $200 million in losses. Walgreens ultimately followed through with its threats, purporting to terminate the parties’ agreement more than years early and with far less than one-third of the Smart Doors installed, depriving Cooler Screens of the benefit of its bargain and the opportunity to recover its costs and ultimately profit from this expensive venture. Walgreens’ conduct was part of a scheme, apparently with direction from the very top of the organization, aimed at preventing Cooler Screens from meeting certain contractual performance and revenue targets and manufacturing “breaches” that Walgreens could then use to exit the contract.

Walgreens generally began obstructing Cooler Screens at every turn it needlessly halted Cooler Screens’ expansion to more stores refused to provide timely approvals stopped providing data and blocked ads Cooler Screens was permitted to display on the cooler doors. The parties were on the same page, working cooperatively, and enthusiastic about the partnership, until 2021 – when Walgreens brought in a new Chief Executive Officer, Rosalind (Roz) Brewer, who decided that she did not like how the screens looked and that she wanted them out of the stores.Īs a result, Walgreens stopped working with Cooler Screens to ensure the parties’ mutual success and, instead, worked to undermine it.

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