The Alabama Supreme Court ruled against claims made by retail-liquidation business owners involved in a dispute after the failure of businesses they had jointly managed, sending the matter back to a lower court on Friday.

The case involves the owners of several retail-liquidation stores, now closed, like Mike’s Merchandise, in Pelham, and the Crazy Cazboy’s chain, that re-sold discounted inventory.

The chain, which carried multiple bins of random overstocked and returned merchandise, all new, caught on quickly, opening locations in several states and a “megastore” in Hoover.

However, the venture eventually failed and all locations closed.

Two of the former members of the LLCs that ran the stores claim that a third owner improperly took corporate assets, leading to the closure of the stores. The third owner made similar claims about the other two.

The court ruled Friday to dismiss three petitions, including ones filed by both sides, to review orders from the trial court.

Jason T. Carrick and Ryan McAllister had alleged in Shelby Circuit Court that John Cassimus, the founder of Zoë’s Kitchen, and his associates misused and improperly benefitted from corporate assets.

Cassimus denied this and alleged McAllister and Carrick used the stores to divert profit to Xcess Limited, a wholesale company they separately ran.

“The Cassimus defendants have not established a clear legal right to dismissal of the derivative claims asserted by Carrick and McAllister,” the court said in its ruling Friday.

In their appeal before the state supreme court, The Cassimus defendants had asked the court to reconsider their petition to the lower court to block claims against them and to have the court appoint someone to review the discovery process. Carrick and McAllister challenged the lower court’s decision to dismiss on of the defendants, East Hampton Advisors, LLC.

“We deny the mandamus petition filed by Carrick and McAllister … because they have not shown that they lacked another adequate remedy,” the court said.

An attorney for Cassimus, John Michael Rediker, declined to comment. Attorneys for Carrick and McAllister did not immediately respond to a request for comment.