Birmingham: No Rulings In Haney Non-Compete Hearing

Ryan Haney

A federal judge in Birmingham has continued a hearing that was begun Tuesday morning to help him decide whether to issue a temporary restraining order against former WJOX 94.5 FM sports talk radio general manager Ryan Haney to prevent him from working for rival station WZNN 97.3 FM The Zone.

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.

Haney left WJOX on Jan. 21 and began work for Cox on Jan. 28.

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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