The BUSKLAW Newsletter

November is the month of Thanksgiving. And Thanksgiving for most folks means  time with family and friends (better yet, family who are friends),  an appropriate but modestly-priced wine ,  and  a turkey. Turkeys should live their brief sojourn on this earth in relative peace before winding up on our table. But that was not to be for the poor fowls in the recent Kent County (MI) Circuit Court case of  White Acres, LLC et al v. Shur Green Farms, LLC et al .  The case involves a plethora of parties (hence the "et al"), all of whom were in the distribution chain of a biofuel called Lascadoil. Unlike its parent product, Lasalocid, Lascadoil is not an appropriate turkey-feed additive. (Does anything with "oil" in its name sound fit for human or animal consumption?) So when a bunch of turkeys died after eating feed tainted with Lascadoil, the lawsuits started flying; each party was sued by its downstream buyer who in turn sued its upstream seller. And numero...

                                                   This Photo by Unknown Author is licensed under CC By-SA In last month's newsletter , we determined that Michigan law doesn't recognize the concept that "unreasonable" or adhesion contracts are unenforceable. But there is a caveat: a liquidated damages contractual provision must be reasonable to be enforceable.  A liquidated damages provision is a term of art in the legal world. It applies when, according to Professor Bryan Garner , the parties to a contract agree in advance on the measure of damages to be assessed if a party defaults. Liquidated damages provisions are common in employee non-competition agreements, and it was that clause in one such agreement that Kent County Circuit Court Judge Christopher Yates examined in the case of Alpha Automotive v Cunningham Chrysler of Edinboro. The...