Ashcraft & Gerel v. Coady

244 F.3d 948 (D.C. Cir. 2001)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D was an attorney at the law firm of P from 1989 until April 1998, when he was fired. By letter of July 15, 1997, D advised the firm that it had breached the employment contract by failing to pay his semi-annual salary bonus and that he would exercise his contractual right to take the matter to arbitration unless he was paid by August 15. On August 1, 1997, P sued S in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia for breach of his contractual and fiduciary duties to the firm and conversion. D counterclaimed, alleging that the firm had breached its contractual and fiduciary duties to him. D also pursued his contractual right to arbitrate the dispute before an arbitration panel in Boston, Massachusetts. D prevailed before the arbitration panel on his claim that P had breached the employment contract by improperly 'straddling' income and expenses to manipulate his bonus compensation. The federal district court in Massachusetts upheld the panel's ruling. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit reversed, holding that the arbitration panel lacked jurisdiction to consider D's claim that the firm had deliberately underpaid its senior partners in 1997 in order to lower the salary cap and thereby reduce D's bonus. The jury in the district court for the District of Columbia returned a verdict that P had good cause to terminate D from employment, and that D had not breached his fiduciary duties to the firm. The district court denied D's motion for judgment and a new trial under FED. R. CIV. P. 50(b) and 59, and granted P's motion for judgment on the breach of contract claim in the amount of $400,000, which corresponded to the liquidated damages provision in the employment contract. D appealed.