Flying Star is seeking court approval to end a two-year-old legal battle with two former executives by settling for $375,000 now and not fighting another $611,523 in claims the two can pursue against the restaurant company in its ongoing bankruptcy case, the Albuquerque (N.M.) Journal reported today. Flying Star’s former COO, Clyde Harrington, and former CFO, Donna Schmidt, were already in arbitration with Flying Star and its owners, Jean and Mark Bernstein, when the Albuquerque cafe chain filed for chapter 11 protection in January 2015, and the parties’ legal wranglings have been an ongoing part of the larger bankruptcy case. Harrington and Schmidt had sued Jean Bernstein in 2014 in a contractual dispute following their terminations. They alleged that the restaurant chain had “falsely (cited) cause as the basis” of their firings, depriving them of their employment and allowing the company to deny payment of their stock options worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The original filing did not specify the amount sought in damages, but the duo later filed claims in the bankruptcy case totaling between $5.8 million and $7.3 million, according to court records.
