Mercho Roushdi Shoemaker Dilley Thoraco Vascular Corp. v. James W. Blatchford, III, M.D., and Eve G. Cieutat, M.D.

On Petition to Transfer from the Indiana Court of Appeals, No. 84A¥01-0801-CV-30

An Indiana group of open-heart surgeons with facilities in Indianapolis and Terre Haute recruited a husband-wife team from Texas to provide more staff capacity at its Terre Haute operation. The parties negotiated rather elaborate, if ordinary, agreements that covered various aspects of their business relationship, from stock purchase arrangements to dissolution procedures to noncompetition provisions.

When the Texas doctors decided several years later to set up a competing practice of their own in Terre Haute, they…