American Consulting, Inc. d/b/a American Structurepoint, Inc. v. Hannum Wagle & Cline Engineering, Inc., d/b/a HWC…

Summary

The Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the trial court's summary judgment ruling that the liquidated-damages provisions in the former employees' restrictive-covenant agreements were unenforceable penalties. The provisions were facially unreasonable because their percentage-based amounts were not correlated to ASI's likely losses, and ASI offered no evidence establishing such a correlation. The Court also held that conflicting evidence about whether HWC acted with improper purpose created a material factual dispute precluding summary judgment on ASI's tortious-interference claims.