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When then-Varity Corp. Chairman Victor Rice abruptly parted company with his top executive at the company's Kelsey-Hayes unit a little more than a year ago, a high-level dispute was assumed.
Rice and Edward Gulda are hard-driving CEOs, and the company's all-important automotive-brake business was at a crossroads. But difficulties between top executives and their former lieutenants rarely, if ever, lead to lawsuits -- until now.
Gulda is suing his former employer for ending his $10,000-a-month consulting arrangement, according to a suit filed last week in Wayne County Circuit Court. The cancellation followed Gulda's hiring away of key Kelsey-Hayes employees to his newly formed company, Peregrine Inc.
The suit seeks $110,000 plus interest.
It's not clear why Rice, now chairman of Lucas-Varity plc, ended the consulting fee he had been paying each month since Gulda unexpectedly left the company in November 1995.
Gulda's Jan. 2 termination letter from J. Howard Chandler, LucasVarity's Buffalo, N.Y., based senior vice president for human resources stated the action was the "result of your recent activities involving Peregrine.