July 2008

The Business Court denied the Plaintiff’s Motion for Expedited Discovery, without discussion, in its Order in this covenant not to compete case.  From looking at Defendant’s brief in opposition, what probably doomed the motion was that the one year non-compete period had nearly expired when Plaintiff requested expedited discovery.  The same Order was entered on…

The Court granted a Motion for Protective Order preventing Defendant from determining the identity of a confidential informant to the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.  The Court found that the identity of the confidential informant was "of no consequence to the issues in this case."  The Court further found that there was good cause…

Plaintiff sought an injunction preventing Defendant from selling its assets in North Carolina.  The Motion was filed pursuant to N.C. Gen. Stat. § 1-485, which permits an injunction when "the defendant threatens or is about to remove or dispose of his property, with intent to defraud the plaintiff." 

The Court denied the injunction, finding that it…

This opinion dealt with subpoenas to a party’s attorney and its accounting firm.  The Court quashed the subpoena to the law firm (Gray Layton), holding:

Service of a subpoena duces tecum on a law firm seeking documents from the firm’s client files clearly raises worrisome issues of attorney-client and work product privilege. The attorney-client privilege

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The Business Court overruled an objection to its mandatory jurisdiction over a Complaint alleging breach of a trademark license agreement.  It held "this case involves both the right to use trademarks and the right to use designs previously sold under the trademarked names at issue. It involves issues which fall within the mandatory issues supporting assignment…

If a case involves only a breach of a covenant not to compete or a confidentiality agreement, it is not within the mandatory "unfair competition" jurisdiction of the North Carolina Business Court, based on two recent decisions.

The first case is Workplace Benefits, LLC v. Lifecare, Inc, decided by the Court on July 14, 2008.  In that…

Today, in its Order and Opinion in Bolick v. Sipe, the North Carolina Business Court rejected a novel argument regarding the validity of post-employment consideration for a covenant not to compete.  It also dealt with the issue of the validity of a summons issued in the wrong name.

On the non-compete side, Plaintiff signed the non-compete with…

A minority member (Kaplan) of a limited liability company, who was the LLC’s only source of funds and who controlled the LLC’s checkbook, did not have fiduciary duties to the LLC and its other members.

Judge Tennille held:

Being an investor in a company does not create a fiduciary relationship. . . . Kaplan, as a minority shareholder, had

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