Firm obtains arbitration win for auto dealer involving employee non-solicitation breach
Nick Carter and Jason Brown persuaded an arbitrator to award nearly $40,000 to their auto dealership client following the violation of a non-solicitation employment contract by a former service department manager who orchestrated the exodus of employees to a competitor dealership.
The arbitrator compensated the firm’s client for increased costs of retaining staff and hiring new employees caused by the non-solicitation breach, as well as for disgorging salary paid to the ex-manager during the time period he solicited and persuaded members of his staff to join him in leaving the dealership.
Mr. Carter and Mr. Brown also persuaded the arbitrator to deny the claim for five years of unpaid vacation time, plus interest and attorneys’ fees, asserted by the ex-manager and another former employee.
The arbitrator determined that the dealership had an enforceable “use it or lose it” policy prohibiting the accumulation of unused vacation time year to year, and that it had fully paid the two employees for unused vacation they had earned when they left the company.