Kansas Supreme Court - 99536 – Wolfe Electric, Inc. v. Duckworth

opportunity to fully brief and argue the issue, instead of this court attempting to decide it
without the benefit of their briefs and arguments and the trial court's analysis.
Issue 3: The trial court erred in letting the jury interpret the contract.
Duckworth next argues the trial court should not have allowed the jury to interpret
his employment contract. More particularly, he appears to complain the court erred in
denying his dispositive motions to reject Wolfe Electric's claims that mere competition by
Duckworth violated the restrictive covenants of his employment contract and then in
allowing the jury to determine whether mere competition breached the contract. He cites
Reimer v. The Waldinger Corp., 265 Kan. 212, 214, 959 P.2d 914 (1998) (interpretation of
a contract is a question of law).
Wolfe Electric responds that the trial court acted properly in allowing the jury "to
figure out what the contract means."
We essentially resolved this issue in the earlier related discussion about erroneous
jury instructions, e.g., Instruction 3. As mentioned there, the contract is clear; it does not
prohibit general competition. Consequently, the court erred in denying the motion for
judgment as a matter of law and then erred in allowing the jury the opportunity to interpret
the contract. The interpretation and legal effect of a contract is a question of law for the
court to decide, not a jury. See Osterhaus v. Toth, 291 Kan. 759, 768, 249 P.3d 888 (2011).
Issue 4: Miscellaneous issues whose resolution requires appellate court determination
of the quantity and quality of evidence should not be decided as a matter of law when the
case is being remanded.
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