Legal battle escalates in mother-vs.-son restaurant lawsuit

The mother of the current owner of Coldwater Cafe in Tipp City is urging a Miami County judge to reject her son's attempt to throw out the lawsuit she filed against her son and the restaurant she founded.

Nicholas Hoover, chef-owner of Coldwater Cafe, is seeking the dismissal of a lawsuit filed Feb. 16 by Betty Peachey, who founded Coldwater Cafe in 1994. Peachey’s lawsuit claims that her son reneged on a 2011 oral agreement to pay her $40,000 per year for the rest of her life in exchange for full ownership of the restaurant.

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In a “motion for judgment on the pleadings” filed March 21 on Hoover’s behalf, Troy attorneys Glen McMurry and Michael Rice contended that the basis of Betty Peachey’s lawsuit is so flawed that a judge should dismiss the suit prior to it reaching trial. Hoover said through his attorneys that the transfer of ownership of the restaurant actually was completed two years before Peachey had claimed, in 2009, and they say there is no evidence of any oral agreement between mother and son.

Hoover said in court documents that his mother had walked away from her job at the restaurant in 2014, and he eventually stopped paying her salary.

“Mr. Hoover never promised to pay (his mother) a lifelong, annual retirement of $40,000 a year if (she) transferred all remaining voting and non-voting shares to him,” Hoover’s attorneys wrote. Besides, such an oral agreement “cannot be enforced in preference to a signed writing which pertains to exactly the same subject matter, yet has different terms,” they said.

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Hoover’s mother responded late last week through her attorney, Craig Matthews of Centerviille, denying that she had given up ownership of the restaurant in 2009, and urging the judge to allow the lawsuit to continue.

During the time that Peachey still owned the voting shares of Coldwater Cafe, “Hoover’s livelihood was solely dependent on Peachey employing him and on his ability to acquire an ownership interest in Coldwater,” Peachey’s attorney wrote. “Hoover thus had an enormous motive to acquire the voting shares from Peachey, because that was the only was he could guarantee his job and pave the way for his taking over the highly successful restaurant his mother had founded.

“Thus, Hoover promised he would take care of his mother for her retirement if she gave him her voting shares in Coldwater.”

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No trial date has been set. A hearing has been scheduled for May 11 on another motion filed by Hoover’s attorneys, requesting that the judge seal certain records, such as bank-account records and other “potential proprietary financial information,” from public view.

Coldwater Cafe has been a popular dining destination for several years. Earlier this year, the Tipp City restaurant was included in the online-reservations website OpenTable.com’s 2017 list of the “100 Most Romantic Restaurants in America.”

Peachey said in her lawsuit that she originally hired her son to work in Coldwater Cafe’s kitchen, then sent him to culinary school in California to groom him to take over as executive chef at the restaurant. She is seeking compensatory and punitive damages as well as court costs and attorneys’ fees.

The case is pending before Miami County Common Pleas Judge Jeannine Pratt.

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