A local television news report on Thursday drew local attention to the legal dealings of county executive candidate Nathan Wooten. The Planet had a peep into documents filed in Dade Superior Court Friday morning. Here's a rundown:
Bobby Fryar Trucking, a 50-year-old trucking company in Chattanooga, filed suit against Wooten and his River Run Logistics Inc. transportation brokerage company on May 29, 2018. Bobby Fryar Trucking is suing for $86,875 in back invoices it says River Run owes it, plus legal expenses.
Wooten's River Run is a broker that acts as a go-between for shippers who have loads to transport and truckers like Bobby Fryar Trucking who deliver them, earning its income through commissions for providing that service. In this case, Bobby Fryar Trucking says River Run was paid by its clients for the shipments Bobby Fryar Trucking delivered, but then failed to pay Bobby Fryar Trucking for some deliveries.
The trucking company's complaint cites a contract between itself and River Run signed April 27, 2017. It says River Run subsequently began failing to pay invoices and that on Feb. 27, 2018, it sent a letter demanding payment, then another in April of that year. Both having failed to make River Run pay, says the complaint, the trucking company filed suit in May. It called Wooten "stubbornly litigious" and also alleged:
"Bobby Fryar understands Defendant Wooten has likely used the funds earmarked to pay the Balance in his personal life rather than paying Bobby as agreed."
Nathan Wooten and River Run responded with an answer and countersuit to the complaint on July 2, 2018. Wooten's argument was that it was Bobby Fryar Trucking that had violated the contract by soliciting business directly from his clients in violation of the noncompete clause in their agreement.
The contract specifies that if the trucking company violates the clause, it would owe River Run, the broker, 50 percent of all the income it derived from the stolen client for the next two years. And it specifies: "Plaintiff began to solicit customers introduced to Plaintiff by Defendant RRLI on or about 4/1/18, and thereby sought to avoid paying the broker commission due to Defendant RRLI."
Therefore, says Wooten's countersuit, River Run should be awarded 50 percent of whatever fees Bobby Fryar was paid from River Run's clients from April 1, 2018, to whatever date the court decided was fair.
Bobby Fryar Trucking took issue with the April 2018 date--it had sent a letter demanding payment for delinquent invoices in February 2018, it reminded in a "motion for partial summary judgment." Thus, it states, Wooten was alleging Fryar breached the contract after it had completed the work for which it still had not been paid.
"River Run failed to pay Bobby Fryar Trucking for its work month after month after month," reads the court document. "It would have been pointless for Bobby Fryar Trucking to continue to abide by an agreement from which it received no benefit. It was doing all the work--and incurring all the expenses--while River Run alone received payments."
The motion goes on to explain that Wooten's company had offered the trucking company a deal to increase its business volume by delivering to River Run's clients, but in August 2017 River Run failed to pay a $650 invoice, in December 2017 a $3600 invoice, and in January 2018 a $5050 invoice--all these before its February 2018 demand for delinquent payment and well before the trucking company's alleged April 2018 breach of contract.
That motion is still pending. Meanwhile, on June 3, 2019, Wooten and River Run served Bobby Fryar Trucking with a set of interrogatories demanding whether it did business with certain named individual clients.
A hearing on this matter is set for Thursday in Dade Superior Court, with a trial scheduled for April.
Companies often squabble in court about money and contracts. What makes this case a little different is the timing of unrelated cases filed in Dade Superior in Nathan Wooten's name: Notably, that on Jan. 2, 2018, the month before Fryar's demand for delinquent payment, Wooten had agreed to pay $200,000 to his wife--or then-wife-- Monda Wooten, as a divorce settlement.
The divorce decree details an agreed division of property between the Wootens, giving each sole ownership of their individual businesses and sharing out between them multiple homes, land lots and eight vehicles. Ms. Wooten, a Trenton city commissioner, had filed for divorce the previous year on the basis that the marriage was "irretrievably broken."
Nathan Wooten had not by this writing returned The Planet's phone or written messages requesting comment.
Meanwhile, in two other suits unrelated to either the divorce or the trucking company complaint, both Wootens had been sued and threatened with foreclosure in October 2018 by the McLemore Homeowners Association and McLemore Club for unpaid fees totaling $38,619.94, a demand that was later reduced because the entities were permitted by law to sue for only four years of back fees. Those two suits have subsequently been settled and dismissed.
Wooten is running against 12-year incumbent Ted Rumley for Dade County's top elected office. He announced last summer, though official qualifying does not begin until Monday.
