Opinion ID: 2981253
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Nature of $1.5 Million Payment

Text: The $1.5 million payment that Drexel made to Syngenta on September 26, 2006, was made “in order to maintain the Registration,” and so under the Agreement Albaugh was liable for half of it, regardless of how the interpretational issue in Part A is resolved. The district court did not clearly - 10 - Nos. 11-5430, 11-5498 Drexel v. Albaugh err in the factual findings undergirding this assessment, and its interpretation of the contractual language is correct. Drexel received a request for payment from Syngenta under the data compensation scheme outlined in FIFRA. Drexel paid $1.5 million toward this amount. The $1.5 million was therefore made for the purpose of maintaining the registration, and therefore triggered Albaugh’s obligations under the Agreement. Albaugh’s characterization of the payment as “voluntary” is both inaccurate and somewhat beside the point. As the district court pointed out, “[c]ooperation in the data compensation scheme of FIFRA is essential to maintaining the product registration,” and failure to participate can lead to suspension of the registration under 7 U.S.C § 136a(c)(2)(B)(iv). Drexel’s payment qualified as participation; indeed, the arbitration panel ultimately credited it toward the amount Drexel owed Syngenta as data compensation. The fact that failure to make such a payment may not have led to an immediate loss of registration does not lessen its importance or keep it from being made “in order to maintain the Registration.” The Agreement does not refer to payments necessary to maintain registration. A contract is enforced “according to the ordinary meaning of its words.” Moore v. Moore, 603 S.W.2d 736, 739 (Tenn. Ct. App. 1980). The ordinary meaning of the words in the Agreement includes the $1.5 million payment. Although Albaugh argues that the Agreement refers to payments “required as part of [an] existing data compensation agreement between Drexel and Syngenta . . . [or an] existing data compensation arbitration decision between Drexel and Syngenta,” the ordinary meaning of the words in the Agreement will not bear these additional requirements that Albaugh seeks to impose. - 11 - Nos. 11-5430, 11-5498 Drexel v. Albaugh