{"id":649,"date":"2013-05-29T19:41:26","date_gmt":"2013-05-29T19:41:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/former-outback-steakhouse-employee-not-necessarily-down-under-for-allegedly-breaching-fiduciary-duty\/"},"modified":"2013-05-29T19:41:26","modified_gmt":"2013-05-29T19:41:26","slug":"former-outback-steakhouse-employee-not-necessarily-down-under-for-allegedly-breaching-fiduciary-duty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/former-outback-steakhouse-employee-not-necessarily-down-under-for-allegedly-breaching-fiduciary-duty\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Outback Steakhouse Employee Not Necessarily \u201cDown Under\u201d For Allegedly Breaching Fiduciary Duty"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Georgia Court of Appeals recently held that summary judgment in favor of an employer is improper on a breach of fiduciary duty claim when there is no evidence that an employee\u2019s outside business interests harmed the employer.\u00a0 In Crippen v. Outback Steakhouse Int\u2019l, L.P.<\/em>, 741 S.E.2d 280 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013), Kevin Crippen worked for Outback Steakhouse International, L.P. (\u201cOutback\u201d).\u00a0 Mr. Crippen began working as a server and bartender at one of Outback\u2019s restaurants in 1990, and worked his way up the \u201ccorporate ladder\u201d for several years.\u00a0 By December 2009, Mr. Crippen was promoted to Senior Vice President of Operations for Outback (\u201cSenior Vice President\u201d).<\/p>\n

During his various employment positions with Outback between 1990 and 2009, Mr. Crippen never executed any formal, written employment contract.\u00a0 In 2008 and 2009, Mr. Crippen purchased minority interests in three restaurants in Asia (where he was living and working for Outback at the time).\u00a0 Mr. Crippen also purchased interests in or consulted with seven companies that supplied food and other materials to restaurant operators, including Outback.\u00a0 Mr. Crippen did not disclose his interests in such companies to Outback.<\/p>\n

When Mr. Crippen was promoted to Senior Vice President, Outback presented him with an Officer Employment Agreement (the \u201cEmployment Agreement\u201d), which Mr. Crippen signed on January 1, 2010.\u00a0 Less than one year later, in November 2010, Outback terminated Mr. Crippen\u2019s employment.\u00a0 Outback based its termination of Mr. Crippen\u2019s employment on what it considered to be a violation of the Employment Agreement and Outback\u2019s internal ethics policy.\u00a0 More specifically, Outback discovered Mr. Crippen had invested in and consulted with restaurants and companies in Asia from whom Outback purchased certain products.<\/p>\n

As a result, Outback filed suit against Mr. Crippen, seeking monies Mr. Crippen had made from his side investments and consulting in Asia, as well as any salary and other compensation Mr. Crippen had been paid between 2008 and 2010.\u00a0 At the trial court level, both Mr. Crippen and Outback moved for summary judgment and the trial court granted summary judgment or partial summary judgment in favor of Outback on certain of its claims.\u00a0 Mr. Crippen appealed.<\/p>\n

One issue that the Georgia Court of Appeals addressed in relative detail was the trial court\u2019s grant of summary judgment in favor of Outback on one of its claims for breach of fiduciary duty.\u00a0 Outback had alleged, in part, that Mr. Crippen violated his fiduciary duty to Outback by owning and working for outside restaurants and suppliers.\u00a0 The trial court granted Outback summary judgment, relying upon a term in the Employment Agreement requiring Mr. Crippen to \u201capply 100% of his \u2018full business time, attention, energies and effort\u2019\u201d to Outback and further reasoning that Mr. Crippen had not fulfilled this contractual term.<\/p>\n

Although the Court of Appeals affirmed the trial court\u2019s grant of summary judgment with respect to Outback\u2019s claim for breach of the Employment Agreement, finding that Outback could recover nominal damages even if it could not prove actual damages, the Court of Appeals reversed the trial court\u2019s grant of summary judgment as to the breach of fiduciary duty claim and remanded the claim for trial.\u00a0 In doing so, the Court of Appeals plainly stated that the breach of fiduciary duty claim was more than a breach of contract claim.\u00a0 Consequently, the Court of Appeals stated Outback must demonstrate that \u201c[i]rrespective of damages, there [was] a breach of a duty in the first instance.\u201d\u00a0 More specifically, the Court of Appeals found that, even if in 2010, Mr. Crippen\u2019s contract \u201cmay have prevented him from owning an interest in restaurants or companies doing business with [Outback], it remains an open question as to whether, and to what extent, that [Mr.] Crippen\u2019s outside interests were in any way contrary to, in competition with, or adverse to his employer.\u201d Despite Outback\u2019s allegations that Mr. Crippen realized \u201ckickbacks\u201d from his business interests, the trial court did not determine that the prices Outback paid for its goods, or the quality of the goods themselves, were anything out of the ordinary.\u00a0 The trial court also did not determine that Mr. Crippen had anything to do with the vendors that were selected.\u00a0 Thus, the Court of Appeals held that, there was no conclusion that Mr. Crippen \u201cus[ed] his position for his own personal benefit to the detriment of his employer.\u201d Accordingly, Outback had failed to prove any damages proximately caused by Mr. Crippen\u2019s alleged breach, and, therefore, summary judgment on this breach of fiduciary claim was improper.<\/p>\n

With this opinion, the Georgia Court of Appeals appears to have drawn a fairly clear line between what an employer must prove to establish an employee\u2019s breach of his or her contractual obligations and what an employer must prove to establish an employee\u2019s breach of his or her fiduciary duties.\u00a0 In other words, this opinion indicates that even if an employee violates his or her contractual obligations and participates in outside business interests that are beneficial to the employee and appear to be suspect with respect to the employer\u2019s competitive interests, a court may not find a breach of fiduciary duty without evidence that the employee\u2019s alleged competitive activities actually harm the employer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Georgia Court of Appeals recently held that summary judgment in favor of an employer is improper on a breach of fiduciary duty claim when there is no evidence that an employee\u2019s outside business interests harmed the employer.\u00a0 In Crippen v. Outback Steakhouse Int\u2019l, L.P., 741 S.E.2d 280 (Ga. Ct. App. 2013), Kevin Crippen worked […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[18,24,20,23,16],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nFormer Outback Steakhouse Employee Not Necessarily \u201cDown Under\u201d For Allegedly Breaching Fiduciary Duty - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/former-outback-steakhouse-employee-not-necessarily-down-under-for-allegedly-breaching-fiduciary-duty\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Former Outback Steakhouse Employee Not Necessarily \u201cDown Under\u201d For Allegedly Breaching Fiduciary Duty - Berman Fink Van Horn P.C.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Georgia Court of Appeals recently held that summary judgment in favor of an employer is improper on a breach of fiduciary duty claim when there is no evidence that an employee\u2019s outside business interests harmed the employer.\u00a0 In Crippen v. 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