Loftness Specialized Farm v. Twiestmeyer, No. 15-1420 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseLoftness filed suit against Terry Twiestmeyer, Steven Hood, and TAI, seeking a declaratory judgment involving contracts associated with the development, manufacture, and sale of grain-bagging equipment. Defendants asserted counterclaims against Loftness for breach of two contracts: an Override Agreement and a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). On remand, the district court granted Loftness's motion for summary judgment on the claim for breach of the NDA. The court concluded that there is a genuine issue of material fact regarding TAI’s claim that Loftness had breached the NDA by disclosing and using confidential information when it agreed to have Brandt Industries sell Loftness manufactured grain-bagging equipment. In this case, so long as Loftness continued to pay TAI, TAI reasonably may have considered Loftness’s use of TAI’s confidential information as part of the Brandt Industries relationship to be a non-competitive use. Accordingly, the court reversed and remanded.
Court Description: Gruender, Author, with Wollman and Beam, Circuit Judges] Civil case - Contracts. For the court's prior opinion in the matter, see Loftness Specialized Farm Equipment, Inc. v. Twiestmeyer, 742 F.3d 845 (8th Cir. 2015), where the court reversed and remanded the district court's order granting plaintiff summary judgment on defendants' ccounterclaim for breach of a non-disclosure agreement. On remand, the court again granted plaintiff's motion for summary judgment, and this order is reversed and remanded. There was genuine issue of material fact regarding defendants' claim that plaintiff had breached the non-disclosure agreement by disclosing confidential information when it agreed to have a third party sell its grain-bagging equipment; defendants' counterclaim sufficiently pleaded the issue that plaintiff had breached the agreement by using the information for its own benefit while the agreement was in effect.
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