Court Rulings

Granting a motion to confirm an arbitration award and denying a motion to vacate the same award, the Court holds: the parties' contract and applicable law gave the arbitration panel authority to decide both substantive and procedural arbitrability questions. Judgment is entered confirming the award. Denying the defendant's special appearance because the Court has specific jurisdiction over the defendant. Applying the court's jurisdictional balance-shifting framework, the court holds that the defendant's removal notice, which pleaded more than five million dollars in controversy, satisfied the statutory jurisdictional threshold where plaintiff offered no rebutting evidence. The plaintiff's allegations that the former president's new company aided and abetted his breach of fiduciary duties satisfied the jurisdictional clause in Tex. Gov't Code Section 25A.004(b)(5). The petition's repeated allegations regarding misappropriation of sensitive business information invoked Section 25A.004(d)(4)'s jurisdictional clause, requiring that the suit relate to intellectual-property ownership or use, despite no standalone trade-secret misappropriation claim. This opinion addresses Civil Practice & Remedies Code Chapter 33's definition of "responsible third party" and the meaning of "the harm for which recovery of damages is sought," as used therein. This Opinion addresses the enforcement of a mandatory Buy-Sell Option clause and its specific performance remedy after the Offeror tendered the requisite buy/sell notice and the Offeree failed to respond to the notice and claimed the Offeror violated the underlying Company Agreement. The Court ultimately finds the Offeror is entitled to specific performance from the Offeree under the Buy-Sell Option clause. The Court awards the Offeror attorneys' fees. Ruling after court-ordered Rule 166(g) briefing. Ruling that Plaintiffs take nothing by their claims for declaratory relief and, with respect to one defendant, that Plaintiffs take nothi

Appellant challenges the district court's grant of a harassment restraining order (HRO), arguing that his conduct was not objectively unreasonable and did not have a substantial adverse effect on respondent that was objectively reasonable. We affirm.

This is a premises liability case brought by a sales representative for a product vendor who was injured while in a Tractor Supply store performing his job. The trial court entered summary judgment in favor of Tractor Supply. On appeal, this Court affirmed the trial court's decision based upon the conclusion that Tractor Supply was the statutory employer of the sales representative under Tenn. Code Ann. § 50-6-113(a) and was, therefore, shielded by the exclusive remedy provision of the workers' compensation statutes. The Tennessee Supreme Court granted permission to appeal, concluded that Tractor Supply was not the sales representative's statutory employer, and remanded the case to this Court to consider the pretermitted issues. We have determined that the trial court erred in granting summary judgment to Tractor Supply on the issue of whether Tractor Supply owed a duty of care to the sales representative. We vacate and remand for further proceedings.

The Plaintiff brought a claim of intentional interference with business relationships against the Defendant, and the Defendant moved to dismiss under the Tennessee Public Participation Act (TPPA). The Defendant attached to the motion a declaration to establish that the suit was in response to his exercise of the right to free speech and right to petition. The Plaintiff did not attempt to establish a prima facie case but instead sought to amend the complaint to allege a different cause of action and sought to exclude the declaration. The trial court dismissed under the TPPA. The Plaintiff appeals. We affirm and remand for a determination of attorney's fees under the statute.

Attorney fees—$400 an hour determined to be reasonable rate given respondents' concession and the absence of satisfactory evidence submitted by relator in support of $690 rate billed by relator's attorneys—Respondents invoked "good-faith exception" too late because former R.C. 149.43(C)(3)(c) does not provide a basis for reducing an award of attorney fees but, rather, applies only to the court's initial determination of whether to award fees to a prevailing relator—Relator's attorney-fee application granted in amount of $28,120.

A district court can deviate upward from the presumptive child support guideline amount if it is in the best interest of a child and one or more of the enumerated criteria under N.D. Admin. Code § 75-02-04.1-09(2) is met. A district court's findings explaining why an upward deviation is in the best interest of a child, and explaining the amount of an upward deviation, are explicit enough if the Court is able to understand from them the factual basis for the district court's determination. The mandate rule does not permit a party to relitigate issues which were resolved in a first appeal, and requires a district court to follow the pronouncements of an appellate court within the limits of a remand.

Support; spousal; child; impute income; minimum wage; voluntarily underemployed; abuse of discretion; R.C. 3105.18 factors; R.C. 3119.01 factors; pending appeal with the Ohio Supreme Court; mandate; subject-matter jurisdiction; S.Ct.Prac.R. 18.04(D). Judgment affirmed. The trial court had jurisdiction to proceed with the case following the Ohio Supreme Court's decision to decline Husband's jurisdictional appeal on May 27, 2025, and issue an amended judgment entry, two days later on May 29, 2025. S.Ct.Prac.R. 18.04(D) does not require a mandate as Husband contends. Therefore, May 27, 2025, the day the decision was issued, guides us. Additionally, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in imputing minimum wage income to Wife, declining to award spousal support, and ordering Husband to pay child support. Husband reargues the same facts and issues we considered in the previous appeal, referencing the gifts Wife received from B.T. (her father), her monthly expenses, and the money in B.T.'s trust account that Wife receives as a beneficiary. However, we found that the trial court's consideration of these gift was improper. As a result, the trial court and this court cannot consider B.T.'s gifts to Wife when determining Wife's income. When reviewing the other evidence in the record, it is clear that Wife did not have any source of income in her own name. The court found the testimony established that Wife is voluntarily underemployed based upon her education, work history, and potential employment. Notably, other than referring to the gifts Wife received from B.T., which we previously found was improper for the trial court to consider, Husband can point to no evidence of Wife's income. Therefore, the trial court's conclusion that Wife was voluntarily underemployed and imputing an annual minimum wage income of $22,256 was not an abuse of discretion.

Attorney fees; mandate rule; guardian ad litem fees; R.C. 3105.73(A); Ohio Sup.R. 48.02(H)(3). Reversed and remanded. The trial court's award of attorney fees to appellee is reversed and remanded because the trial court was considering financial support appellant received from her father when making determinations, the award of attorney fees was not supported by the record, and the trial court failed to follow the mandate of the appellate court on remand. The trial court's allocation of guardian ad litem fees is reversed and remanded because it is not supported by the record and does not follow Ohio Sup.R. 48.02(H)(3).

Divorce; marital property division; valuation dates; financial accounts; retirement accounts; posttrial evidence; spousal support; temporary spousal support; temporary support; economic misconduct; distributive award; attorney's fees; R.C. 3105.171(A)(2); R.C. 3105.171(E)(4); R.C. 3105.18(C)(1); R.C. 3105.73(A); App.R. 16(A)(7). Judgment affirmed in part, reversed in part, and remanded. The trial court, which determined that the marriage terminated on the first day of trial (August 4, 2020), abused its discretion by dividing the parties' marital financial accounts using February 2023 balances while dividing marital retirement accounts as of August 4, 2020, without an adequate explanation, logically related to the facts of the case, for the inconsistent valuation dates. On remand, the court must divide the financial accounts as of August 4, 2020, based on testimony and admitted exhibits, without reopening trial or rebalancing equities elsewhere. The court also erred to the extent it relied on posttrial, nonadmitted materials to assign a $148,025 value to appellant's Thrift Savings Account. The decree must be corrected to the only value supported by the evidence, $77,219, though no broader recalculation of the defined-contribution retirement division is required because the decree divides those accounts as of August 4, 2020, plus earnings/gains/losses. The trial court's spousal support determinations are affirmed. The award of $4,000 per month for 44 months from appellant to appellee commencing August 1, 2023, was within the court's discretion under R.C. 3105.18(C)(1), and appellant was not entitled to a credit that would shorten the permanent-support duration based on temporary support previously paid. The trial court also acted within its discretion in finding that appellee was not entitled to her request of $12,000 per month indefinitely with the trial court to retain jurisdiction. Appellee's economic misconduct claim, through which she sought a distributive award,

Breach of contract; unjust enrichment; void; R.C. 4735.02; weight of the evidence; damages; R.C. 2323.51; frivolous conduct. Affirmed. The trial court did not err by concluding that an enforceable contract existed based on the claims asserted in the complaint and at trial for damages stemming from a breach of the agreement, and the trial court's determination that the plaintiff failed to prove damages was not against the weight of the evidence. And finally, because the plaintiff failed to file a motion for attorney fees under R.C. 2323.51, no claim for fees was preserved.

DEFAMATION PER SE – TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE – BREACH OF SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT – QUALIFED PRIVILEGE – ACTUAL MALICE – JURY INSTRUCTIONS – DERIVATIVE CLAIMS – NOTICE OF CROSS-APPEAL: Where plaintiff former employee sued his former employer for defamation, the trial court erred in finding that the former employer's statements were protected under qualified privilege where the court improperly determined that the privilege applied based on the employer-employee relationship and did not fully consider the remaining elements of the qualified-privilege standard, and the court erred in instructing the jury that it had to find actual malice in order to find in favor of plaintiff on his defamation claim. The trial court erred in determining that plaintiff former employee's breach-of-contract claim against his former employer was derivative of his defamation claim where the contract claim fell under a separate settlement contract between the parties. Where plaintiffs' witness lacked firsthand knowledge of the statements about which he sought to testify, he lacked the personal knowledge required by Evid.R. 602. Where plaintiff could not definitively identify the caller, the trial court did not abuse its discretion in excluding evidence about a phone call. Where defendant-appellee failed to file a notice of cross-appeal but sought to assert a cross-assignment of error to change the trial court's judgment, the cross-assignment of error must be dismissed.

JUDGMENT ON THE PLEADINGS — CIV.R.12(C) — COMMON LAW WRONGFUL DISCHARGE — R.C. CH. 4112 — EMPLOYMENT DISCRIMINATION — WORKERS' COMPENSATION RETALIATION — R.C. 4123.90: The trial court erred when it dismissed plaintiff-employee's common-law wrongful-discharge claim in violation of Ohio's public policy against employment discrimination on the basis of a person's disability based on plaintiff-employee's failure to allege facts that would satisfy the statutory definition of an employer because R.C. Ch. 4112's definitional section does not inform the basis of the public policy announced in R.C. 4112.02(A). The trial court erred when it dismissed plaintiff-employee's statutory claim for workers' compensation retaliation under R.C. 4123.90 based on the "coming and going" rule because a workers' compensation retaliation claim does not depend on a workplace injury or successful workers' compensation claim. The trial court erred when it dismissed plaintiff-employee's common-law wrongful-discharge claim in violation of Ohio's public policy against workers' compensation retaliation under R.C. 4123.90, because such claims are available to plaintiffs-employees who were terminated before they filed for workers' compensation and regardless of whether their workers' compensation claims would have been successful.