Departing-employee cases often involve claims for trade-secret misappropriation, breach of confidentiality and noncompetition agreements, and tortious interference with contractual or business relationships. Because these claims may also be per se violations of section 75-1.1, departing-employee cases between competitors almost always involve section 75-1.1 claims, as well. The North Carolina Business […]
I am always curious to see how courts outside of North Carolina grapple with section 75-1.1—particularly when facing novel or unsettled questions. And few questions are as unsettled as whether the economic-loss rule bars a section 75-1.1 claim. In fact, we have discussed opinions from outside of our state (California […]
Nuisance lawsuits against pork producers Murphy-Brown and Smithfield Foods have received extensive publicity in the past two years. In those cases, individuals that live near hog farms owned by Murphy-Brown and Smithfield allege that the hog farms—namely, the odors, dust, noise, and other things that go along with hog-farm operations—are […]
It has been some time since we have written about the attorneys’ fee provision in N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-16.1(1). Back in 2015, we wrote about that section’s requirement for a fee award of “an unwarranted refusal” by the party charged with the violation “to fully resolve the matter.” Attorney […]
