Yonkers cleaning contractor Dennis Robertson claims that an Ossining company is using a dirty deal to squeeze him out of work.
Robertson sued Accent Maintenance Corp. on Aug. 10 in Westchester Supreme Court, asking the court to declare a one-year noncompete agreement unenforceable.
“Accent”™s cease and desist demand,” the complaint states, “is purely spiteful and punitive in nature.”
Attempts to get Accent”™s side of the story failed.
For 40 years, Robertson has supervised the cleaning and maintenance of offices and schools, according to the lawsuit. Beginning in 2008, he also managed the cleaning crew for Empire City Casino at Yonkers Raceway.
While employed by Empire City, he worked on the side with the casino”™s consent, the complaint states, managing contracts for outside businesses. Accent Maintenance hired him in 2015 as a part-time account manager for $1,250 a week.
In 2016, Robertson lined up a lucrative, three-year deal with the prestigious Horace Mann School in the Bronx. Accent got the contract, he claims, because of his reputation and longstanding relationships with the school.
He supervised and managed the work, while also working for Empire City. But last year, MGM Growth Properties bought the casino and racetrack, and Robertson was told that he had to work exclusively for Empire City.
As he relinquished supervision of the Horace Mann job, Robertson alleges, the school become dissatisfied with Accent. The contract expired last summer, and the school used Accent on a month-to-month basis while looking for a new contractor.
Robertson claims that Accent”™s owners, David Feldman and Jeffrey Krinick, offered him a full-time job if he could get back the Horace Mann contract, and that in March Feldman told school officials that Robertson would be employed full-time to satisfy Horace Mann”™s expectations.
But immediately following the meeting, the complaint states, Feldman told Robertson that he would not be hired full time if Accent got the contract.
Then, on April 1, Robertson was furloughed from Empire City because of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Horace Mann ended its month-to-month arrangement with Accent as of June 30 and hired Jeancare Services Inc., owned by Robertson”™s wife, Jean.
Robertson claims he has never worked for or received compensation from Jeancare and has no official role in the company.
But on July 30, Accent sent Robertson a cease and desist letter, claiming that he had diverted the Horace Mann job to a competitor, had misappropriated Accent”™s relationship with the school and had violated a 2015 non-solicitation agreement.
“Accent had no ”˜relationship”™ with Horace Mann after June 30, 2020,” Robertson argues. It was his relationships that enabled Accent to get the contract, he alone had managed the work, and the school decided for its own reasons not to continue business with Accent.
“Now, having lost Horace Mann”™s business due to its own ineptitude and unsatisfactory performance,” the complaint states, “Accent seeks to prohibit plaintiff (and, apparently, plaintiff”™s wife and her company) from having any further dealings with Horace Mann for at least a year.”
The noncompete agreement, he argues, is one-sided, overbroad, unenforceable and contrary to the law and “should be declared null and void.”
Robertson is represented by White Plains attorney Richard F. Markert.
