Recent Contracts News

As reported on JDSupra here, the Florida District Court of Appeal for the Fourth District, sitting en banc, held that while an insurer’s liability for coverage and the extent of damages must be determined before a bad faith claim becomes ripe, the insured need not also show that the insurer is liable for breach of contract before proceeding on the bad faith claim.

We have also learned from JD Supra of Piedmont Office Realty Trust v. XL Specialty Ins. Co., 2014 U.S. App. LEXIS 20141 (11th Cir. Oct. 21, 2014), in which the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, elected to certify to the Supreme Court of Georgia the question of whether an insured’s payment obligations under a judicially approved settlement agreement qualify as amounts that the insured is “legally obligated to pay,” and if so, whether the insured’s failure to have obtained the insurer’s consent to settle resulted in a forfeiture of coverage.

According this this report on Yahoo! Sports, Oklahoma State is suing the former Offensive Coordinator of its football team, Joe Wickline (who now is a coach for the University of Texas), and Wickline has countersued.  According to the report, Wickline’s contract with Oklahoma State require that he pay the balance of his contract ($593,478) if he left for another position and was not his new team’s play-caller. Wickline claims that he is calling plays at Texas.  What a bizarre thing to put in a contract.  It’s a reserve non-compete!  In effect, Oklahoma State is saying that it would pay Wickline to call plays for a rival.

According to this report from the Courthouse New Service,  Ted Marchibroda Jr., the son of NFL Football coach Ted Marchibroda, filed a $1 million malpractice lawsuit against Sullivan, Workman & Dee and trial lawyer Charles Cummings , alleging breach of contract, professional negligence and breach of fiduciary duty.  In a 2011 lawsuit, Marchibroda accused sports agent Marvin Demoff of breaching an agreement to share the proceeds of NFL contracts for linebacker Chad Greenway. He claims that he is also owed money for recruiting center Alex Mack. 

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And continuing our sports report, Golf.com notes that golfer Rory McIlroy is taking a break from the “sport” to pursue his legal claims against his former management company, Horizon Sports Management.  McIlroy claims that Horizon took advantage of his youth to extract an unconscionable 20% fee for McIlroy’s off-the-course income.  Horizon is claiming $3 million in breach-of-contract damages.

In a simpler companion case to the Sharpe v. AmeriPlan Corp. case about which we blogged earlier today, the Eighth Circuit affirmed the District Court’s denial of a motion to compel arbitration in Quam Construction Co., Inc. v. City of Redfield.  As reported here on Law.com, the case was relatively easy, since the contract at issue contained permissive language: “the parties may submit the controversy or claim to arbtiration.”  Given such language, the Eighth Circuit agreed with the Distrcit Court that arbitration could not be compelled.