Indiana Supreme Court - Paper Example

FACTS: Natare Corporation and D.S.I, Duraplastec Systems, Inc., are concern rivals. Have settled two pending lawsuits and agreed not to propagate derogatory information about each other. In case of breachment of this understanding, the defiant party would be entitled to a minimum of $5,000 in liquidated damages, the actual damage if shown, and reasonable attorney fees, and other expenses incurred in pursuit of claim.

D.S.I breached the law as it circulates negative opinion of Natare Corporation which makes the m to lose the contract with Colorado a potential customer. Determines to go for the arbitrary as per agreed upon.

Jerry Pitt acknowledged allegations to be true but there was no show of actual damage. The arbitrator convicted that D.S.I to get charged as agreed but no attorney fee to be paid (Pitt, 2005).

Natare sought for an appeal for the arbitrator looking down on the claims and overlooking on the attorney fees to be paid.

LEGAL QUESTION: Is Natare Corporation entitled for an Attorney fee after D.S.I breached the agreement made between the two?

DECISION: No (Shepard, C.J., and Dickson, Boeh, and Rucker, JJ.)

COURTS RATIONALE:

The contract language did not show the actual damage and also the other expenses that were

Incurred during the court hearing and proceedings. The dispute has been drawn out of many

years and had taken place not only to the case scenario alone and thus could not be gauged that

the party had made Natare lose on this specific scenario alone (Shepard et al., 2006).

DISSENTING OPINION:

The arbitrator had the power and the authority within his jurisdiction to state the amount of money to be compensated to Natare as the attorney fees. The arbitrator was even entitled to state that the fees were actually zero but in this case the arbitrator ignored to state the amount which would be provided as the compensation thus this brought about the opinion that the court determined that the party needed actually to be compensated since the arbitrator has gone overboard his own powers (Johnson, 2006).

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE CASE:

The significance of the case stand that despite the fact that Natare had suffered damages the intial agreement between the parties did not provide room for the attorney fees to be compensated. The parties had agreed that $5000 would be compensated as liquidated damages and thus for Natare to go to the arbitration it was selfish and that the party wanted to actually gain more from a contract which they had not agreed so. The derogative that was brought about should have been compensated through the liquidated fees and not go further to demand the payment of the attorney fees which was a cost incurred by both parties and, therefore, both Natare and D.S.I should have borne their own cross.

Works Cited

Jerry Pitt (2005), Natare Corp. v. D.S.I., Duraplastec Sys., Inc., 841 N.E.2d 192.

Kenneth H. Johnson (2006), Natare Corp. v. D.S.I., Duraplastec Sys., Inc., 833 N.E.2d76, 80-84 (Ind. Ct. App. 2005).

Shepard et al., (2006), Natare Corp. v. D.S.I., Duraplastec Sys., Inc., Indiana Supreme Court No. 49S05-0512-CV-637