On December 1, 2025, Wesco filed a 41-page lawsuit against Eckart Supply, seeking “compensatory, consequential, punitive, and exemplary damages” after several Eckart hired several Wesco employees and managers.
On Tuesday, September 29, a federal judge in Georgia heard several motions to dismiss parts of the case. The judge did not make an immediate ruling, and did not announce a timeline for releasing his decision.
Case Background
Wesco acquired Atlanta Electrical Distributors LLC (AED) in 2016 and merged it completely under the Wesco brand in 2025. Wesco claims in its lawsuit that AED’s former owners, Kester and Kevin Black, played a role in luring two high-level managers and two sales representatives from AED to Eckart. In the lawsuit, Wesco says Kester and Kevin Black wanted to create “AED 2.0” at Eckart by hiring defendants Jon Kevin Black, Luke Beverly, Christopher Eric Granger, Matthew Black, and James Clint Spratlin.
The suit also claims Kester and Kevin Black, while still employed by Wesco, were engaging in conversations with Eckart about expanding operations in direct competition with AED in the Southeast, and claims the Blacks promised Eckart they could leverage their personal relationships with Wesco customers, suppliers, and managers.
The suit claims, “Eckart, Kester Black, and Kevin Black lured former AED/WESCO managers including Beverly and Granger (directly and/or through intermediaries) to run the daily operations of Eckart’s new Georgia locations based on promises that, in addition to their employment and related compensation, they too would share in the bounty of an eventual sale of Eckart or ‘AED 2.0,’ just as they had each received significant transaction bonuses from the sale of AED to WESCO. Based on those inducements and acting in concert with Eckart, Kester, Kevin Black, Beverly, and Granger directly and/or indirectly through intermediaries solicited and recruited dozens of AED/WESCO’s employees to join Eckart, both during and after they left AED/WESCO, in violation of their restrictive covenants, fiduciary duties, and duties of loyalty.
Eckart filed a 15-page motion to dismiss, claiming Wesco’s complaint does not meet federal standards.
It offers four points:
Eckart argues the allegation is nothing more than a traditional employer and employee relationship. Personnel chose to change companies. Eckart maintains at-will employees have the opportunity to seek other employment, and the hiring decisions by Eckart do not live up to being a “corporate raid”.
Eckart also claims Wesco does not have sufficient facts to prove confidential fiduciary information was violated by the departed employees.
Third, Eckart’s motion claims Wesco’s assertion that the employees who left were induced to provide confidential information and breach contracts is “cookie-cutter” and does not provide sufficient facts related to this case.
And fourth, it wants to strip Wesco’s claims of fiduciary breach, civil conspiracy, and tortuous interference, claiming all of these should not be heard by a jury.
Wesco’s opposition to those motions describes the actions by Eckart as anything but “standard competition” and were actually coordinated, in bad-faith, and a “corporate strike”.
Wesco has continued its claim that it created the Atlanta Electrical Distributors strategy following the acquisition, and Eckart used that strategy for was what internally dubbed “AED 2.0” by Eckart. Wesco added that after Eckart hired more than 30 specific employees, it forced Wesco to permanently close several Atlanta area branches. It also claims the managers who left Wesco for Eckart brought pricing structures, project pipelines, and customer lists with them to Eckart.
Because Eckart’s motion is only partial, the sections of the lawsuit that related to trade secret misappropriation and non-compete clauses remain intact.