North Carolina Business Litigation Lawyer & Attorney : Mack Sperling : Brooks Pierce Law Firm : Greensboro, Raleigh, Winston-Salem, Charlotte

There was no tortious interference contract claim against a defendant who sold product to plaintiff's competitor.  This was a legitimate exercise of the defendant's rights.

There was no claim for negligence, or negligent misrepresentation, against the defendant because the plaintiff's claims were for breach of warranty and covered by the UCC, and also because of the economic loss rule.  Judge Tennille held:

This is a breach of warranty case. The complaint alleges any statements were made in the course of the contractual representation. It fails to establish any independent duty running from ALT to Gateway. To substitute negligent misrepresentation for breach of warranty under the circumstances of this case would eviscerate the pertinent sections of the UCC. Both the negligent misrepresentation claim and the negligence claim in Count VI are barred by the economic loss rule. Both are based upon a breach of contract or warranty and the recovery is limited to the contract or warranty claim. Our Court of Appeals has held that: “a tort action does not lie against a party to a contract who simply fails to properly perform the terms of the contract.” Spillman v. Am. Homes of Mocksville, Inc., 108 N.C. App. 63, 65, 422 S.E.2d 740, 741 (1992).

A trade secrets claim, which asserted that defendant had improperly given plaintiff's customer list to a competitor of plaintiff, survived the Motion to Dismiss. The Court held that "[c]ustomer lists may or may not be trade secrets depending on the circumstances and the use made of them," and held that discovery on this claim would be necessary.

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Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss

Brief in Opposition to Motion to Dismiss

Reply Brief in Support of Motion to Dismiss

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The Court of Appeals affirmed yesterday a 12(b)(6) dismissal of a claim under the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act, in Washburn v. Yadkin Valley Bank and Trust Co. 

In Washburn, the Defendant had made a counterclaim charging that the Plaintiffs, former employees, had misappropriated its trade secrets.  The trade secrets the Defendant referenced in its Complaint were its "business methods; clients, their specific requirements and needs; and other confidential information."

The Court held that the Defendant was under an obligation to identify the trade secrets involved with "sufficient particularity to enable [the opposing party] to delineate that which he is accused of misappropriating and a court to determine whether misappropriation has or is threatened to occur." 

The Court characterized Defendant's allegations as "broad and vague," and "general and conclusory."  It affirmed the trial court's dismissal of the claims.

The case was summarized on the North Carolina Appellate Blog.  That's an excellent resource which reports promptly on civil decisions by the North Carolina Supreme Court and Court of Appeals and the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals.

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Defendant, a veterinarian, had signed a covenant not to compete with his former employer. He was, at the time, the sole shareholder, sole officer, and sole director of his employer, although the management of the company was controlled by an affiliated entity (VetCor). Defendant left the business and sold its stock, but before doing so he formally cancelled his own non-compete and that of his wife, another veterinarian.

His former employer sued for breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, aiding and abetting breach of fiduciary duty, unfair and deceptive practices, and violation of the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act. The Court granted summary judgment on the breach of contract claim as to the former employer. It held that "a sole shareholder of a corporation is generally free to dispose of corporate assets as he sees fit, except where such actions harm or defraud the corporation's creditors, or otherwise violate public policy." Vetcor, however, was entitled to proceed on its breach of contract claim, because the contract had been intended for its benefit.

The Court held that summary judgment was inappropriate on the argument that the covenants were unenforceable becasue they had been signed after the commencement of employment. The date on the contracts was contemporaneous with the start of employment of defendant and his wife, and the Court held that the dates in the contract were prima facie evidence of the date of execution. The Court said that it would consider parol evidence on the actual date that the contracts were signed.

The Court also found that the covenants were ambiguous about whether they applied in the event of a resignation, as opposed to a termination, and that this was an issue for trial.

The Court granted summary judgment on the fiduciary duty claims. Defendant had no fiduciary duty to Vetcor, which was merely a creditor of a corporation that was not in a winding up mode, and he had not breached any duty to his former employer because he was the sole shareholder at the time of his alleged misconduct in setting up a competing business. The Court held that "to hold that [defendant] breached a fiduciary duty would mean only that he breached a duty to himself. Because this conclusion is a non sequitur, the Court declines to adopt it."

On the trade secrets claim, the Court ruled that customer lists are not protected if they contain information that is easily accessible or which can be retrieved by reviewing public information, and that plaintiff had no claim.

The Court let stand the unfair and deceptive practices claim, finding questions of fact on whether defendant was entitled to invoke the learned profession exemption from the statute.

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Plaintiff sought to enforce the stock repurchase provisions of a shareholders agreement with two former employees, the defendants. The Court found, however, that the price to be paid ($5 for stock with a book value of more than $36,000), and the circumstances under which the defendants had signed the agreement, rendered the transaction unconscionable. The Court further found, however, that there was no mandatory buyback obligation of the plaintiff.

The Court granted summary judgment on plaintiff's claims that the defendants had violated fiduciary duties through their post-termination activities. As low level employees, defendants had no fiduciary duties as a result of their employment.

Nor had defendants violated any trade secret obligations by bidding on a contract where bidding was open to the public.

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The Court found that the actions of the defendants in pirating away employees and accounts of the plaintiff exceeded the bounds of fair and ethical competition and therefore constitute unfair and deceptive practices.

The Court referred to defendants' conduct as "surreptitious and intentional," and undertaken while the employees solicited were still employed by the plaintiff. This activity had enabled the plaintiff to build competitive operations in a matter of days, through its "orchestrated, en masse, secret recruitment."

On the trade secret claim, the Court found that the plaintiffs' "compilation of information, including its special pricing information, customer information (identity, contacts and requirements of its rental customers), personnel and salary information, organizational structure, financial projections and forecasts, utilization rates, fleet mix by market, capital and branch budget information, and cost information, when taken together constitutes trade secrets."

The Court also found sufficient evidence to make out a claim for conspiracy.

The Court rejected defendants' claim that the claims were barred by laches. It also rejected defendants' counterclaim that the lawsuit was a sham and brought to hurt its business. The Court found that the lawsuit had been brought with a realistic expectation of success and that it was immunized under the Noerr-Pennington doctrine.

Finally, the Court drew an adverse inference from the failure of some of the defendants to testify.

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This is a significant Business Court opinion on unfair competition. The defendants were a competitor of the plaintiff, and former employees of the plaintiff who had left to join the defendant. The first issue addressed by the Court was whether the former employees owed a fiduciary duty to their former employer. The Court found there was a question of fact whether the former employees who had served in management positions had the ability to dominate and influence their former employer, so it denied summary judgment on the issue whether those employees had fiduciary duties. Summary judgment was granted, however, as to some of the employees who the Court found had only basic management responsibilities. Authority over day to day operations, even with substantial discretion over such operations, is insufficient to make out a fiduciary duty.

On the merits of the claims, the Court noted that merely planning to work for another company or planning to start a new company is not unlawful behavior. The proper focus, the Court held, is upon the actions taken by the former employees in furtherance of a plan to compete. The Court granted summary judgment as to the employees who it had found might have had a fiduciary duty, as the only evidence before the Court of their pre-departure activities was that they had met and discussed the possibility of competing.

The Court denied summary judgment on plaintiff's claim of tortious interference with prospective economic relations.

The claim for violation of the North Carolina Trade Secrets Protection Act also survived. The Court found that business plans, marketing strategies, and customer information could constitute confidential information protected under the Act. The substantial decrease in plaintiff's business, and the simultaneous increase in defendant's business, constituted circumstantial evidence that there had been a misappropriation.

A claim for unfair and deceptive practices also survived summary judgment, as did a claim for conspiracy. The Court denied summary judgment based on the defense of laches, finding that there had not been an unreasonable delay in bringing suit and that defendant was unable to show any prejudice as a result of the alleged delay.

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