Campton United settles lawsuit over former coach
The Campton United Soccer Club has settled a lawsuit it filed against the Aurora-based Team Chicago, which hired a former Campton coach last month before an 18-month noncompete clause in his old contract had expired.
Terms of Friday's settlement were not available in Kane County court records, but Judge David Akemann dismissed the lawsuit with prejudice, meaning it cannot be refiled.
Campton United sought a temporary restraining order and other relief in a lawsuit filed last week over Team Chicago's employment of Chris Brown, who had resigned from Campton United in mid-April 2015 as the club's girls coach after learning his contract was not going to be renewed.
Campton United attorneys argued in their lawsuit that Brown agreed to a noncompete clause, which required that he not take a coaching job with another club within a 30-mile radius for 18 months, or through October 2016. The lawsuit argued the Brown failed to return proprietary club information as well as confidential play information that could be used to poach players from Campton United in the future.
The club, which draws players from St. Charles, Geneva, Batavia and other towns in Kane and DuPage counties, wanted a judge to ban Brown from working for Team Chicago until October 2016 and also asked Team Chicago to remove an April 2016 social media post about Brown's hiring that touted his experience with Campton United.
Even before Friday's case dismissal, the post announcing Brown's hire had been removed.
Phil Nielsen, the technical director of Team Chicago, did not return a phone message, but wrote in letter to Campton United in April that Brown was a "volunteer adviser" and was not ever Team Chicago's employee or agent.
"I can assure Campton United that we have no intent at all in conducting our business in a manner similar to Campton United," Nielsen wrote. "We are a very unique operation and have for the past eight years under my leadership deliberately chose to conduct business in a different way that our competitors in the youth soccer marketplace."
No costs were assessed to either side as part of the settlement, records show.