Breach of Contract Cases

retirement benefits, retroactivity, vesting, public employees, mootness

enforceability of non-compete agreement North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act

Herman worked as a legal recruiter for 23 LTD, d/b/a Bradsby Group (Bradsby). When she was hired, Herman signed an employment agreement with a nonsolicitation provision and a noncompete provision. Bradsby terminated Herman's employment and she thereafter founded a company that did some legal recruiting and law firm succession planning. Bradsby sued Herman for breach of the noncompete and nonsolicitation provisions. A jury determined that Herman had not breached the noncompete provision, but returned a verdict in favor of Bradsby on the nonsolicitation claim and awarded nominal damages of one dollar. The district court set aside that verdict and entered judgment in favor of Herman because the nonsolicitation provision violates Colorado law and the court declined to narrow the provision to render it enforceable. The court denied Herman's request for attorney fees under the employment agreement's fee-shifting provision. On appeal, Bradsby argued that the district court erred in declining to blue pencil the nonsolicitation provision. Parties to an employment, noncompete, or nonsolicitation agreement cannot contractually obligate a court to blue pencil noncompete or nonsolicitation provisions to render unenforceable terms enforceable. But a trial court has broad discretion to blue pencil an otherwise offensive restrictive covenant. Here, the district court gave substantial reasons why it declined to exercise its discretion to blue pencil the agreement, including the general Colorado public policy against noncompete provisions, authority in other jurisdictions, and the significant overbreadth of the nonsolicitation provision. Thus, the district court did not err. Bradsby next argued that the jury's verdict that Herman did not form a competing company in violation of the noncompete provision is not supported by the evidence. The noncompete provision stated that, upon her termination, Herman would not become involved in a company that competed with Bradsby within a defined

Summary judgment affirmed that employee-alleged severance agreement under statute of frauds did not constitute legally enforceable contract. Nor was reliance on contract existence or injury therefor supported by the evidence.

Violation of ERISA

Motion to stay proceedings and compel arbitration nonsignatories arbitration agreement nursing facility admission agreement. - Trial court did not err in denying defendants' motion to stay proceedings and compel arbitration where the defendants, who were nonsignatories to the arbitration agreement, failed to demonstrate (1) how they could enforce the agreement despite their status as nonsignatories (2) how the plaintiffs were bound by an agreement they too had not signed and (3) that the plaintiffs' claims arose out of the nursing facility admission agreement, as required by the arbitration agreement.

A district court's denial of a motion for new trial is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. A court abuses its discretion if it acts in an arbitrary, unreasonable, or unconscionable manner its decision is not the product of a rational mental process leading to a reasoned determination or it misinterprets or misapplies the law. Unopposed jury instructions become the law of the case. A party on appeal cannot complain about error that is of their own making. A district court considering a new trial motion based on insufficiency of the evidence may not substitute its own judgment for that of the jury, or act as a thirteenth juror when the evidence is such that different persons would naturally and fairly come to different conclusions, but may set aside a jury verdict when, in considering and weighing all the evidence, the court's judgment tells it the verdict is wrong because it is manifestly against the weight of the evidence. Absent statutory or contractual authority, the American Rule assumes parties to a lawsuit bear their own attorney fees.

The trial court correctly ordered that $10,000 disbursed from appellant's 401(k) plan and held in trust by his attorney be paid to Ace Sprinkler, Inc.'s receiver for distribution to an Ace employee and to appellant's former partner in the business. The funds were not protected by R.C. 2329.66, and appellant was unjustly enriched by the funds, which came from the employee's and partner's payroll deductions. Judgment affirmed.