Insureone Independent Insurance v. Hallberg

Bench trial resolved disputes among purchasers and sellers of assets of several insurance companies. Plaintiffs' evidence of sales made by Defendants' competing agencies led to reasonable inference that Plaintiffs would have made a portion of these sales absent Defendants' competition, given undisputed evidence that Defendants opened stores in close proximity to Plaintiffs' stores in effort to target their customers. Thus, Plaintiffs showed that losses were causally related to Defendants' breaches of restrictive covenants, and that Plaintiffs had legitimate expectation that Defendants could not begin to form competing businesses until expiration of covenants. Court erred in granting summary judgment to a defendant who lacked standing to pursue his claim as to contingent purchase price payments. (STEELE and MURPHY, concurring.)