The judge overseeing the Joe Gibbs Racing vs Chris Gabehart and Spire Motorsports lawsuit issued a mixed restraining order during a very brief session on Monday at the Western District of North Carolina courthouse.
Gabehart will be allowed to continue working as the Chief Motorsports Officer at Spire Motorsports but will not be allowed to do anything that overlaps with his previous competition director role at Joe Gibbs Racing. In other words, he can oversee big picture Spire business and work within TWG Motorsports' other properties -- like its Truck Series, Late Model and Sprint Car teams in addition to the Andretti Autosport IndyCar program.
"Other duties are fair game," the Judge said.
From the standpoint of the defendants, this means no change, as both parties have been adamant over the past two weeks that there is no overlap between roles so the ruling does nothing to disrupt the status quo.
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Judge Susan C. Rodriguez also ordered Gabehart to return all proprietary information from Joe Gibbs Racing he may still have in his possession. Again, from the standpoint of the defendants, this also doesn’t change the status quo as Gabehart says he already has and Spire has been adamant that they never received anything of the sort.
Joe Gibbs Racing also expressed satisfaction on the ruling in a Monday afternoon statement:
"We are pleased with today’s ruling by the United States District Court for the Western District of North Carolina for a temporary restraining order enforcing the terms of our contract with Chris Gabehart. We will continue the legal process to protect our information and fight for what is right for our race team, our employees, and our partners."
JGR on Sunday filed a motion that seeks expedited discovery from Gabehart and Spire concerning all communications or documents that might show a premeditated effort from both parties to steal and disseminate trade secrets and proprietary competition data.
Because such evidence right now would be ‘speculative at best’ according to Judge Rodriguiez, she did not grant the full restraining order against the defendants that would have forced Gabehart to resign. Instead, all parties will meet back in court on March 16 to take up the motion for discovery and the preliminary injunction motion.
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Joe Gibbs Racing has also been ordered to put up a $100,000 bond in case Gabehart gets a favorable ruling over what he has been doing since formally joining Spire on February 17.
Leaving the courthouse, Gabehart said he hasn’t been doing anything at Spire that overlaps with what he did at Joe Gibbs Racing and Spire co-owner Jeff Dickerson said the same. Coach Gibbs nor anyone from the team or family was present for the hearing on Monday.
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