By Jeff MacHarg and Camryn Rohr.   Maven Advantage, Inc. and Square One Storm Restoration, LLC are competing roofing businesses.  Maven alleged that two employees (Couch and Daniels) stole Maven’s trade secrets (customer lists) and then quit to work for Square One.  According to Maven, Couch and Daniels used Maven’s customer lists and unlawful tactics to steer customers away from Maven and toward Square One.    This longer-than-normal post discusses two early rulings in defendants’ favor: the denial of plaintiff’s request for a…More

By Jeff MacHarg and Camryn Rohr To practitioners familiar with internal disputes involving closely held companies, the allegations in Lafayette Village Pub, LLC v. Burnham, 2025 NCBC 8, are nothing new.  The member running the business (allegedly) made bad, self-interested decisions.  The other members complained, and eventually litigation ensued.  Evaluating these disputes should almost always begin with the operating agreement, but for whatever reason, the members here never agreed to one.  So, this motion to dismiss ruling is founded on default rules…More

Only two months into 2025, and the Business Court has already denied two motions for leave to add claims to pierce the corporate veil.  My fellow-Foxer, Brad Risinger reported here on the first opinion from Judge Earp in MD Claims Grp., LLC v. Bagley, 2025 NCBC 2.  The very next day, in CTS Metrolina, LLC v. Barastain, 2025 NCBC Order 4, Judge Earp denied a motion for leave to amend in a different case for the same reason, futility: the…More

Each February, the North Carolina Administrative Office of the Courts publishes its Report on North Carolina Business Court.  The Report includes data on case types, number of cases, pending motions, and average age, with comparisons to prior years.  Here’s a quick recap of stats I found interesting: New cases are up.  New cases are up significantly with 138 new cases in 2024 compared to 101 in 2023.  This means the number of pending cases is also up (206 vs. 189).  Surprisingly…More

This lawsuit involves breach of a confidential settlement agreement.  In motion briefing, both sides relied on and filed the subject agreement.  Both sides also filed (unopposed) motions to seal it.  These two Orders from Judge Conrad (Interim Order, [Final] Order on Motions to Seal) again confirm that our Business Court Judges don’t own rubber stamps.  They read every word of every motion, even motions that are unopposed.  In this case, Judge Conrad denied the parties’ motions to seal because, after giving…More

A party trying to serve their pleading used FedEx, but not the right FedEx. Turns out there are a slew of similarly-named FedEx’s, but only certain ones are approved “designated delivery services” under Rule 4.  They used “FedEx Express Saver,” but Express Saver is not on the approved list.  The targets moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(5), and in this opinion,* Judge Robinson granted the motions.  Judge Robinson made clear that when it comes to service of process, Rule 4(j) requires…More

Jeff MacHarg and Alexandra Hirsch    Prevailing at summary judgment is rare. Prevailing when there are competing motions on the same issue (fraud) is even rarer.  In this opinion, Judge Davis granted the Defendants’ motion and denied the Plaintiff’s, ending the lawsuit.  It includes good lessons on the importance of pleadings, the need to present admissible evidence at summary judgment, and, at least to this observer, the importance of maintaining credibility.    The plaintiff, B&D, alleged it was defrauded by Defendants (Infobelt…More

Jeff MacHarg and Alexandra Hirsch To secure a preliminary injunction, a party must present evidence of two things, and fast: (1) likelihood of success on the merits; and (2) irreparable harm.  In this recent Order of Significance (denying a preliminary injunction), Judge Davis was able to skip over ‘success on the merits’ because he found Plaintiff’s evidence was lacking.  He also found Plaintiff moved too slowly to justify a finding of irreparable harm.  This Order is a good reminder to practitioners…More

By Jeff MacHarg and Camryn Rohr. Judge Conrad’s Final Judgment in Airtron, Inc. v. Bradley Allen Heinrich ends this years-long Chapter 75, trade secret case.  No doubt, the plaintiff (Airtron) pushed this lawsuit to make a point: if you take our secrets, we will come after you, and we won’t stop until justice is done.  Judge Conrad, it seems, also had a point to make about pursuing justice to the bitter end. After leaving Airtron, Bradley Heinrich allegedly solicited an Airtron employee,…More

By Jeff MacHarg and La-Deidre Matthews. Every litigant wants their attorneys’ fees, but actually recovering them in North Carolina is rare.  Fee recovery must be authorized by rule or statute, and fees must be “reasonable.”  Some of our prior posts dealt with statutory authorization and entitlement.  Here, we skip over entitlement and focus on the proof, i.e., evidence parties submitted (or failed to submit) to prove reasonableness.  As several recent Business Court rulings remind us, when it comes to proof of reasonableness,…More