St. Jude Medical, Inc., Appellant,

This opinion will be unpublished and
may not be cited except as provided by
Minn. Stat. § 480A.08, subd. 3 (2016).

STATE OF MINNESOTA
IN COURT OF APPEALS
A17-0968

St. Jude Medical, Inc.,
Appellant,

vs.

Heath Carter, et al.,
Respondents.

Filed September 17, 2018
Affirmed
Bjorkman, Judge

Hennepin County District Court
File No. 27-CV-15-21203

Edward F. Fox, Kevin P. Hickey, Mark R. Bradford, Laurel J. Pugh, Bassford Remele,
P.A., Minneapolis, Minnesota (for appellant)

Robert L. Schnell, Jr., Martin S. Chester, Faegre Baker Daniels LLP, Minneapolis,
Minnesota (for respondents)

Considered and decided by Bjorkman, Presiding Judge; Reyes, Judge; and Bratvold,
Judge.
U N P U B L I S H E D O P I N I O N
BJORKMAN, Judge
Plaintiff-appellant challenges the award of costs and disbursements, arguing that the
district court abused its discretion by determining that defendants -respondents are the
prevailing parties in this contract dispute. We affirm.

2
FACTS
Appellant St. Jude Medical, Inc. sued respondents, former employee Heath Carter
and Boston Scientific Corporation , for breach of the noncompete provision in Carter’s
employment contract. Following trial, t he jury determined Boston Scientific did not
interfere with the contract and Carter breached the noncompete agreement, but awarded no
damages for the breach. The district court denied St. Jude’s request for injunctive relief.
Both sides petitioned for costs and disbursements, each claiming to be the prevailing party
for purposes of Minn. Stat. §§ 549.02, .04 (2016). The district court determined that Carter
and Boston Scientific prevailed and awarded them $16,257.85 in costs and disbursements.
St. Jude separately appealed both the merits and , in this appeal, the denial of its claim for
costs and disbursements.
This court reve rsed and remanded in the merits appeal , after concluding that the
remedies provision of the noncompete agreement contemplates injunctive relief. St. Jude
Med., Inc. v. Carter, 899 N.W.2d 869, 875 (Minn. App. 2017), rev’d in part, 913 N.W.2d
678 (Minn. 2018). The supreme court granted further review, and we stayed this appeal.
On June 27, 2018, the supreme court issued its opinion, holding that the remedies provision
of the noncompete agreement does not compel the distri ct court “to conclude that the
requirements for issuance of an injunction had been met.” St. Jude Med., Inc. v. Carter ,
913 N.W.2d 678 , 684 (Minn. 2018). And the supreme court further concluded that the
district court did not abuse its discretion by declining to grant a permanent injunction
because St. Jude had not established irreparable harm. Id. at 686. This court subsequently
dissolved the stay and accepted supplemental briefing in this costs appeal.

3
D E C I S I O N
When a judgment or dismissal is entered in a party’s favor, the district court “shall”
award that party its costs. Minn. Stat. § 549.02, subd. 1. Likewise, “the prevailing party
. . . shall be allowed reasonable disbursements paid or incurred.” Minn. Stat. § 549.04,
subd. 1. A district court has discretion to identify the prevailing party, Benigni v. County
of St. Louis, 585 N.W.2d 51, 54-55 (Minn. 1998), and an appellate court applies an abuse-
of-discretion standard in reviewing award s of costs and disbursements , HNA Props. v.
Moore, 848 N.W.2d 238, 242 (Minn. App. 2014). See Ernster v. Scheele, 895 N.W.2d 262,
265 (Minn. App. 2017) (stating that the district court decides “which party, if any, qualifies
as a prevailing party” (quotation omitted)).
“The prevailing party in any action is one in whose favor the decision or verdict is
rendered and judgment entered.” Borchert v. Maloney , 581 N.W.2d 838, 840 (Minn.
1998); see Elsenpeter v. St. Michael Mall, Inc. , 794 N.W.2d 667, 673 (Minn. App. 2011)
(stating that the determination of the prevailing party must include consideration of the
general result and who succeeded under the law). District courts take a practical approach
to determining the prevailing party, considering both “success on the merits” and
entitlement to relief. O’Brien v. Dombeck , 823 N.W.2d 895, 902 (Minn. App. 2012)
(stating that the prevailing-party determination “depends on a pragmatic analysis that takes
into account the plaintiff’s success on the merits and recovery of damages”).
The record demonstrates that Boston Scientific prevail ed on the tortious -
interference-with-contract claim because the jury returned a verdict adverse to St Jude.
And while St. Jude proved that Carter breached the noncompete agreement, St. Jude

4
received neither money damages nor injunctive relief flowing from the breach. 1 We are
not persuaded that a party that proves one element of a breach -of-contract claim has, as a
practical matter, prevailed on that claim. Indeed, this court rejected a similar argument in
Luna v. Zeeb, 633 N.W.2d 540, 543-44 (Minn. App. 2001), in holding that a motor-vehicle
accident victim who proved the defendant driver was negligent but recovered no damages
because of the no-fault thresholds was not the prevailing party. See also Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 760, 107 S. Ct. 2672, 2675 (1987) (stating that in order to prevail, “a plaintiff
[must] receive at least some relief on the merits of his claim ” (emphasis added) );
Bachovchin v. Stingley , 504 N.W.2d 288, 290 (Minn. App. 1993) (holding that a motor-
vehicle buyer was not “injured” for purposes of entitlement to statutory costs and
disbursements for violation of a mileage disclosure statute, because the jury awarded no
damages to the buyer).
Likewise h ere, the jury ruled in St. Jude’s favor on the element of breach, but
St. Jude obtained no monetary or other relief. We conclude that the district court did not
abuse its discretion in determining that St. Jude is not the prevailing party and therefore
not ent itled to costs and disbursements. Because w e agree with the district court that
respondents prevailed in this action , and because St. Jude does not challenge the amount
awarded for respondents’ costs and disbursements, we affirm.
Affirmed.

1 St. Jude contends in its supplemental brief that Carter’s breach entitles it to recover
attorney fees, which would make it the prevailing party. Because this issue was not before
the district court, it is outside the s cope of our review. See Thiele v. Stich , 425 N.W.2d
580, 582 (Minn. 1988) (stating that appellate court does not generally address matters not
presented to and considered by district court).