More documents filed in Stewart-Hass suit against Natures Bakery
If that session is unsuccessful, both sides agree to a second mediation session that will occur 30 days after all summary judgment motions and briefs are filed.
The requests were part of a joint case management report filed Friday.
Also in the filing, Nature's Bakery has requested that a North Carolina Superior Court judge set the trial date for after the 2018 season, stating in court documents Friday that some evidence will not be available until then.
Stewart-Haas Racing has requested that a trial take place as early as later this summer.
In its summary of the issues, Stewart-Haas Racing stated: "Defendants repeatedly renegotiated the timing of payments because, despite promises to the contrary, they apparently could not afford to make the payments. After being bought (in part) by a private equity group, Defendants seemingly lost interest in the sponsorship. Immediately following the end of the 2016 race season, Defendants concocted a long list of fictitious reasons to try to justify terminating the contract, and then terminated the contract with two years and over $30 million remaining owed to SHR."
In its summary, Nature's Bakery stated: "Nature's Bakery would be one of the smallest, if not the smallest, lead sponsor in NASCAR history. In exchange, SHR and Ms. Patrick were to exclusively endorse Nature's Bakery products and provide other services, including broad social media outreach to help promote the brand. Barely six months into the relationship, SHR and Patrick could not or would not fulfill their obligations under the Agreement. Ms. Patrick was endorsing confusingly similar brands and products, and SHR was unable to obtain her cooperation. … At trial, Nature's Bakery will seek, inter alia, to void the Agreement based on SHR's misrepresentations and for declaratory relief that it owes no further money to SHR based on SHR's own breaches and failures to mitigate.'' NBC Sports