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| Ryan Haney |
After more than an hour of hearing arguments between
attorneys for WJOX owner Citadel Broadcasting, Haney, and The Zone owner Cox
Media Group, U.S. District Court Judge David Proctor issued an order continuing
the hearing to 10:30 a.m. Thursday, according to a story at al.com
Citadel, a subsidiary of Cumulus Media, on Monday filed a breach of contract lawsuit
against Haney, claiming he had violated terms of his contract by going to work
for a competing radio station in Birmingham .
Citadel asked for today's emergency hearing in order to get a temporary
restraining order to prevent Haney from working for Cox.
At times the hearing was contentious.
Citadel attorneys wanted the hearing to be closed to the
public and to Cox officials in order to discuss proprietary business
information in its attempt to show that during his career at WJOX Haney had access
to documents, strategies, and client information they don't want disclosed to
Cox.
Mitchell argued Cox is not named as a defendant in the
lawsuit. He told the judge they had asked for today's court hearing only to
consider Haney's contract and its restrictive covenants that remained in place
after he left WJOX.
Attorneys for Haney and Cox Media Group, however, said that
Cox is an "indispensable party" to the court action because it has a
3-year contract with Haney and Cox wants to keep him there.
Proctor gave both sides a chance to meet individually and
then together for about 20 minutes before convening in the judge's office for a
private meeting late this morning.
Before going into the private meetings Proctor had suggested
the possibility of ordering a two-day temporary restraining order preventing
Haney from working for Cox until the hearing could be continued after both
sides filed legal briefs.
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