I've been uncharacteristically quiet about the subject of restrictive covenants, consumed (somewhat mercifully) by other cases in other areas of the law.
But the flow of non-compete decisions does not stop for those who venture astray, and so it appears I have some catchin' up to do.
I'll start with my home State (for now) of Illinois, where we have high taxes and a high output of non-compete cases. The federal district courts in Illinois churn out a lot of interesting non-compete cases. Those decisions, too, tend to be influential. For instance, most Illinois courts have decided to break from appellate case law on the employee at-will consideration rule that has generated some buzz (and some appellate work for yours truly).
Non-Competition Covenants and Motions to Dismiss
One example of this independence from the federal bench is the case of Medix Staffing Solutions Inc. v. Dumrauf. Judge Sara Ellis granted a motion to dismiss a non-compete claim that Medix brought again a former Director of Business Operations. The decision was notable - and fairly bold - since Illinois courts have suggested that enforceability and overbreadth questions generally are unsuitable for motions to dismiss. True, you see these teed up more often at summary judgment or even through preliminary injunction rulings. But infrequently, the propriety of a motion to dismiss in the context of non-competes appears in the case law.
The court in Dumrauf found that the employer's non-compete was extreme and facially unenforceable when it barred the employee from working within 50 miles of any Medix office for any business that competed with Medix or that offered a product or service in competition with Medix. Of central concern to the court was the non-compete's prohibition on Dumrauf's work in any capacity for a competing enterprise. The case demonstrates the importance of drafting non-competition agreements with a reasonable scope limitation that is roughly commensurate with the type of job the employee performed at the company (or perhaps one that, if not comparable, would threaten the same type of legitimate business interest).
Judge Ellis lastly declined to modify, or blue-pencil, the non-compete, as is typical of most (but not all) Illinois courts. The deciding factor is usually how close the employer came to being reasonable. But here, the non-compete failed terribly so Judge Ellis said no to rewriting it.
Non-Solicitation Covenants and Motions for Summary Judgment
The employer didn't fare a whole lot better in Call One, Inc. v. Anzine, but the case does show that blue-penciling is not always a pipe dream.
The non-solicitation covenant in Anzine had all the hallmarks of a crapshow. It was (a) not limited to the employee's particular accounts, and (b) included something called "prospective" customers, which unhelpfully covered accounts the company solicited or "had plans to solicit."
Judge Matthew Kennelly found the covenant unenforceable, noting along the way that Illinois precedents in the non-compete field are of "less than usual value." This could mean either that the cases are too fact-specific to be helpful in a subsequent case, or that Illinois state appellate courts are not helpful as a general proposition. Or both.
But Judge Kennelly looked to a reformation clause in the underlying agreement, which contemplated that a court could make an invalid clause valid. Many changes skim over that clause for reasons that are obvious. As a result, he fixed some (but in my opinion not all) of the problems in the non-solicitation clause, such that Anzine was still barred from soliciting company customers (and active prospects as of the date she was terminated) and customers for which she had sales responsibility.
One other observation on this case. Anzine sent a couple of work spreadsheets to her personal email account, but Judge Kennelly found that no jury could find that this rose to the level of "misappropriation" of a trade secret. The self-emailing phenomenon is not new, but in and of itself it is no panacea for a trade secrets claim. Here, Anzine appeared to have plausible reasons for what she did, and the e-mailing didn't occur under suspicious circumstances (like, for instance, a forwarding of documents after notice and before departure). The court's discussion of this is worth a read for practitioners who've dealt with this set of facts before.
Non-Competition Covenants, Non-Solicitation Covenants, and Motions to Dismiss (Redux)
And on the opposite end of the spectrum (somewhat), we have American Transport Group v. Power. There, the court denied the defendant's motion to dismiss a restrictive covenants claim even when problems with those covenants were clearly apparent. The theme running through this case was nearly the opposite of Dumrauf, as Judge Virginia Kendall repeatedly noted that the employer must have the opportunity to develop the record on the question of reasonableness.
The non-compete precluded a freight broker's salesman from working for any competitor for three months, regardless of geographic location. I have a lot to say about the freight brokerage business, but that's beyond the scope of this. It is true, however, that geography seems to matter very little for sales people who work the phones contacting shippers (that is, customers) and arranging carriers. So I wasn't terribly bothered by the three-month clause or the lack of a geographical limit, as much as I am bothered by the use of non-competes in this industry entirely.
The non-solicitation clause though was a problem, and I think Judge Kendall should have found it unenforceable. It barred Power, for one year, from soliciting or diverting any customer or carrier of his employer. The court provided little analysis here, but I am uncertain how ATG ever could restrict the employee's use of a carrier (in effect, a supplier) when freight brokers all deal with the same carriers. Seems gratuitous.
***
So what lessons did we learn today? Judges reach different holdings on similar facts. Companies still have a lot to learn when drafting agreements. Lawyers will keep getting business because this stuff ain't going away. And your author can't take a month off again, because the cases keep piling up.
Showing posts with label Reasonableness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reasonableness. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 10, 2018
Friday, November 17, 2017
The "Inevitable Disclosure" Non-Compete Clause: What is it and for God's sakes...why?
Leave it to lawyers to see an obscure, narrow, and disfavored legal theory and then try to drive a mack f**king truck through it like it's the next great revelation.
To what might I refer? Try a non-compete on steroids, one so hopelessly inane and stupid that, at first blush, it actually has some appeal. Until, of course, you analyze it and put more than three minutes of thought into what you're doing.
I refer to this unicorn (in the eyes of some) as the inevitable-disclosure non-compete, the intersection of obscurity and protectionism. Allow me to explain how this bad-ass of contractual clauses works (until it's declared invalid).
Start with the basics.
An agreement may have several different types of post-employment covenants that bind the employee. You have your standard non-disclosure clause, which limits for a period of time the use of confidential information the employee learned. Then you have your non-solicitation covenant, which may preclude work with a group of valuable clients or recruitment of co-workers.
Hard stop for a second.
Those two types of covenants have some legitimate uses. But lawyers must still draft them reasonably and with sensible scope and time limits, even if a geographical one isn't needed.
I continue.
Your agreement may even have a general, market-based non-compete that bars work in a relevant industry.
Hard stop again.
This type of covenant needs to be even more carefully tailored, given its broad economic hardship on the person agreeing to the covenant. It limits work, not a type of work or a narrow subset of work activity. Here, we need activity limits, probably a shorter duration, and in many (but not all) cases a geographic scope confined to the employee's or company's sphere of influence.
An inevitable-disclosure non-compete is profoundly different. It requires the employee to refrain from accepting employment that may require him to use, disclose, or rely on the employer's confidential information. This precise type of covenant recently was held unenforceable in the case of Sullivan v. Gupta, M.D., LLC, No. 2:17-cv-609 (E.D. La. Aug. 10, 2017), because it failed to comply with the requirements in Louisiana for enforceable restraints of trade. (Among other things, State law requires an identification of which parish the non-compete applies to, and this one didn't cut the proverbial mustard.)
This is by no means the first case to find that a stealth non-disclosure agreement constitutes a non-compete.
I have my own experience with agreements like this, and it hasn't been positive (except for the fact that we've won). I blogged a few weeks ago about our trial and appellate victory in Automated Industrial Machinery, Inc. v. Christofilis, 2017 IL App (2d) 160301-U, where the Second District affirmed a fee award for my client, the defendant, of nearly $1.5 million.
One of the issues in that case concerned a non-compete, which the trial court found invalid for lack of consideration. The Appellate Court affirmed that ruling. But it didn't discuss the terms of AIM's non-compete. Had we not prevailed on the consideration issue, we had a strong argument on invalidity (not to mention lack of breach, for which there was no evidence).
That agreement was a true inevitable-disclosure non-compete, and I reprint below the operative restriction, which is stunning in scope:
Pretty rough start when you call your non-compete clause a "doctrine of inevitable disclosure." Who the hell thought of that one? Way to be pedantic, and nice way to warm up to a judge.
Beyond that titular snafu, look at the terms. Just two low-lights to point out:
(1) It applies in perpetuity if my client "could not help but rely on or use...or would otherwise inevitably disclose Confidential Information." Who makes that call? How is that agreement one containing definite terms, a plain requirement under contract law?
(2) The employee must provide the company with, basically, a job description and then beg for permission to take it. And the company has 20 days to decide whether "such ...employment is prohibited under the doctrine of inevitable disclosure."
So a clause like this, patently unenforceable and overbroad, vests the employer with sole discretion in perpetuity to decide whether a particular position would require the employee to use its confidential information.
This violates every conceivable principle of non-compete law. No certainty at all. Vast amounts of discretion reserved to the employer to veto an employee's career choice. No time limit to speak of (beyond what the employer itself decides is appropriate). Economic protectionism, to be sure, is not a legitimate business interest.
Bottom line: You use an agreement like this, you deserve to lose. And you will.
To what might I refer? Try a non-compete on steroids, one so hopelessly inane and stupid that, at first blush, it actually has some appeal. Until, of course, you analyze it and put more than three minutes of thought into what you're doing.
I refer to this unicorn (in the eyes of some) as the inevitable-disclosure non-compete, the intersection of obscurity and protectionism. Allow me to explain how this bad-ass of contractual clauses works (until it's declared invalid).
Start with the basics.
An agreement may have several different types of post-employment covenants that bind the employee. You have your standard non-disclosure clause, which limits for a period of time the use of confidential information the employee learned. Then you have your non-solicitation covenant, which may preclude work with a group of valuable clients or recruitment of co-workers.
Hard stop for a second.
Those two types of covenants have some legitimate uses. But lawyers must still draft them reasonably and with sensible scope and time limits, even if a geographical one isn't needed.
I continue.
Your agreement may even have a general, market-based non-compete that bars work in a relevant industry.
Hard stop again.
This type of covenant needs to be even more carefully tailored, given its broad economic hardship on the person agreeing to the covenant. It limits work, not a type of work or a narrow subset of work activity. Here, we need activity limits, probably a shorter duration, and in many (but not all) cases a geographic scope confined to the employee's or company's sphere of influence.
An inevitable-disclosure non-compete is profoundly different. It requires the employee to refrain from accepting employment that may require him to use, disclose, or rely on the employer's confidential information. This precise type of covenant recently was held unenforceable in the case of Sullivan v. Gupta, M.D., LLC, No. 2:17-cv-609 (E.D. La. Aug. 10, 2017), because it failed to comply with the requirements in Louisiana for enforceable restraints of trade. (Among other things, State law requires an identification of which parish the non-compete applies to, and this one didn't cut the proverbial mustard.)
This is by no means the first case to find that a stealth non-disclosure agreement constitutes a non-compete.
I have my own experience with agreements like this, and it hasn't been positive (except for the fact that we've won). I blogged a few weeks ago about our trial and appellate victory in Automated Industrial Machinery, Inc. v. Christofilis, 2017 IL App (2d) 160301-U, where the Second District affirmed a fee award for my client, the defendant, of nearly $1.5 million.
One of the issues in that case concerned a non-compete, which the trial court found invalid for lack of consideration. The Appellate Court affirmed that ruling. But it didn't discuss the terms of AIM's non-compete. Had we not prevailed on the consideration issue, we had a strong argument on invalidity (not to mention lack of breach, for which there was no evidence).
That agreement was a true inevitable-disclosure non-compete, and I reprint below the operative restriction, which is stunning in scope:
Pretty rough start when you call your non-compete clause a "doctrine of inevitable disclosure." Who the hell thought of that one? Way to be pedantic, and nice way to warm up to a judge.
Beyond that titular snafu, look at the terms. Just two low-lights to point out:
(1) It applies in perpetuity if my client "could not help but rely on or use...or would otherwise inevitably disclose Confidential Information." Who makes that call? How is that agreement one containing definite terms, a plain requirement under contract law?
(2) The employee must provide the company with, basically, a job description and then beg for permission to take it. And the company has 20 days to decide whether "such ...employment is prohibited under the doctrine of inevitable disclosure."
So a clause like this, patently unenforceable and overbroad, vests the employer with sole discretion in perpetuity to decide whether a particular position would require the employee to use its confidential information.
This violates every conceivable principle of non-compete law. No certainty at all. Vast amounts of discretion reserved to the employer to veto an employee's career choice. No time limit to speak of (beyond what the employer itself decides is appropriate). Economic protectionism, to be sure, is not a legitimate business interest.
Bottom line: You use an agreement like this, you deserve to lose. And you will.
Friday, November 10, 2017
The Reading List (2017, No. 27): Judicial Rock-Stars,Forum-Selection Clauses, Attorney General Suits, and Worthless Blog Posts
Non-Compete and Trade Secrets News for the week ended November 10, 2017
***
Vicarious Liability Ruling in Waymo v. Uber
For those of you following the driverless car technology trade secrets lawsuit between Google and Uber, I urge you to take a break from the day-to-day litigation filings. They're interesting, to be sure. But they ain't as interesting as this article in The Verge about the judge presiding over the case, William Alsup. I can't do it justice. Read it. It is stunning.
On to more mundane topics in this case: vicarious liability. One of the defendants, Otto Trucking, is out of the case. Judge Alsup granted its summary judgment motion, soundly rejecting Waymo's theory of vicarious liability for the actions of its founder, Anthony Levandowski, the former star engineer whose mass download of files is the heart of Waymo's suit. The court specifically relied on Waymo's strategy to divide and conquer, an effort that kept its claims against Levandowski out of court and the other defendants out of arbitration. As Judge Alsup stated, Waymo could not treat the two as "fungible targets."
The issue of vicarious liability doesn't arise much in the case law, at least in terms of nuanced legal analysis. One line of cases holds that respondeat superior, or vicarious liability, is not available under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act on the grounds that it is a common-law remedy preempted by the statute. Other cases take a more flexible, case-by-case approach, relying on the equities. Judge Alsup's idiosyncratic opinion avoids this discussion entirely, and it's bereft of a single case citation. That doesn't make it uninteresting or even wrong.
To me, the better approach - one textually consistent with the state and federal statutes - is to assess each defendant separately and to determine whether the relevant conduct for each amounts to misappropriation. This is, I think, what Judge Alsup is saying. He eschews any reference to statutory preemption, but it's just a different way of getting to the same result.
Maryland Non-Compete Agreements
Judge Paul Grimm, another total judicial rock-star, struck down a five-year, market-based non-competition clause against a high-level engineer, a ruling summarized in Allied Fire Protection, Inc. v. Thai, 2017 WL 4354802 (D. Md. Oct. 2, 2017). The particular non-compete had the feel of being an amalgamation of form clauses, designed specifically to instruct lawyers on how not to draft non-competes.
For starters, the duration was five years - something sure to align the court with the affected employee. Those limits may be acceptable in the sale-of-business context, where there's equal bargaining power, but they almost never have any justification for at-will employees. Then the employer decided to bar the employee from working in a "similar" business with any of the plaintiff's former, current, or future clients. No parameters. No illustration of why. No common sense.
Judge Grimm's ruling that the non-compete was not tailored to protect a business interest, in the main, is not surprising. But it is significant that it arose in the context of a motion to dismiss, and not after the evaluation of evidence at the injunction or summary-judgment stage. These kinds of early, case-dispositive rulings happen all too frequently, but they embody a pragmatic approach sorely needed in litigation featuring an asymmetry in resources. Judge Grimm was careful to note the lack of allegations demonstrating the need for such broad covenants, a point that enabled the early dismissal.
Practice tip: if you're an employer, never lead with a frivolous argument. For reasons that confound, the employer decided it was a good idea to challenge the removal petition - the case originated in State court - on the grounds that removal jurisdiction violated Article I, § 10 of the United States Constitution - the so-called impairment-of-contracts clause. But as Judge Grimm noted, that clause applies to the States, not the federal government (and it was, after the federal government's jurisdiction that was challenged constitutionally). This approach to argument does nothing to endear one to the court.
Forum-Selection Clauses Following Atlantic Marine
On to a more challenging venue issue.
Venue, jurisdiction, and choice-of-law are heavily litigated procedural issues in non-compete and trade secrets litigation. Though it may seem like in-the-weeds, lawyer drivel, questions of procedure can be consequential. For instance, a few years back, Illinois courts held that Florida choice-of-law clauses are unenforceable because they contravene public policy. If that issue weren't litigated, cases may have come out differently.
Venue clauses may be equally as important. The Supreme Court, in Atlantic Marine Construction Co v. U.S. District Court, endorsed forum-selection clauses and has held courts must honor them in all but the most unusual cases. Practically, that means that only certain public interests (outside of any interests the litigants assert) will justify a transfer when a forum-selection clause is present. That means litigants cannot get out of a choice-of-venue clause if it is inconvenient to them. Predictably, district courts have followed Atlantic Marine and have cut back on the number of transfer orders in federal non-compete cases.
The Third Circuit, this Summer, addressed a difficult question under Atlantic Marine: how should courts apply the ruling when some, but not all, defendants are bound to forum-selection clauses that designate different federal districts? Get ready for some freakin' procedure, folks...
According to the court, there's a four-step inquiry (always a BAD sign). First, courts will apply Atlantic Marine to parties with forum-selection clauses, meaning their claims may be severed and transferred to the agreed-upon forum.
Second, courts then consider public and private interests related to the non-contracting parties (such as a corporate defendant with no direct contractual relationship to the former employer). Here the factors may suggest that the same forum is appropriate for both the contracting and non-contracting parties. And that may be enough for the court to kick or keep the whole action.
Third, if the court finds that the first two steps point in opposite directions, then it must consider severing the claims. That means that a court may need to transfer the action as to some defendants while retaining jurisdiction over others. For instance, a court may lack personal jurisdiction over a non-contracting defendant. It couldn't keep the case, in that instance, for efficiency reasons.
Fourth, if the issue of severance is not clear, then the court must evaluate "efficiency" interests and the non-contracting parties' private interests. Here, a court could find that public interests "overwhelmingly" outweigh the parties' interest in upholding the venue clause and thereby decline to enforce it.
The application of this four-step approach is fairly intricate, but the circuit court's analysis will resemble many of the same issues that arise in multi-defendant non-compete litigation, where individuals have forum-selection clauses and the new employer operates in a venue remote from the contractually chosen one. A link to the opinion is available here.
***
I am not sure I understand the point of drafting worthless, uninteresting blog posts. But if you are a blogger (or aspiring to start one), then I would highly recommend reading the latest entry on the Employment Trial Report. It's a classic example of what not to do. This post caught my eye when it showed up in a blast e-mail through Lexology and purported to "analyze" a $6.8 million trade-secrets judgment in California. Sounds f**kin' awesome, bruh!
No. For starters, don't waste everyone's time talking about a default judgment involving a defendant who has no legal representation and who "failed to participate in the subsequent damages proceedings." What is the takeaway there? It's good to have a lawyer? It's advisable to contest damages? It's best to show up in court for a hearing?
And then don't tell us how the judgment demonstrates that companies "need to be vigilant and act quickly and decisively when it appears" there's theft by an insider. Has anyone ever counseled an employer that, in such a situation, companies should be sluggish and move slowly and equivocally?
Sorry, but you clog up the blogosphere and so you deserve some opprobrium. Take a stand. Say something interesting. Offer a viewpoint. Don't spew drivel. And I could care less if the mandate from the firm's Executive Committee was to fill up the site with more posts...
***
Thad Felton over at Greensfelder in Chicago writes about the Attorney General's non-compete lawsuit against Check Into Cash of Illinois, Inc., calling the move "somewhat unusual." A better description would have been "entirely appropriate." The Freedom to Work Act, signed into law effective January 1, 2017, bars employers from using covenants not to compete against so-called "low-wage employees." This is a move that has gained traction across the United States, as State legislatures seek to pare back the use of overbroad restraints that do nothing to promote economic freedom and serve only to stifle competition.
According to the Attorney General's suit, brought under the Freedom to Work Act, the common law, and the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, the affected employees were store clerks, assistant managers, and managers, many of whom were paid on an hourly basis. The non-compete, recited in a pain-staking block quote, is oppressively overbroad and disconnected to any legitimate business interest. It's obviously unenforceable, despite the thatchy, semantic jungle in which the contractual language is buried.
A copy of the Attorney General's complaint is available here.
***
Vicarious Liability Ruling in Waymo v. Uber
For those of you following the driverless car technology trade secrets lawsuit between Google and Uber, I urge you to take a break from the day-to-day litigation filings. They're interesting, to be sure. But they ain't as interesting as this article in The Verge about the judge presiding over the case, William Alsup. I can't do it justice. Read it. It is stunning.
On to more mundane topics in this case: vicarious liability. One of the defendants, Otto Trucking, is out of the case. Judge Alsup granted its summary judgment motion, soundly rejecting Waymo's theory of vicarious liability for the actions of its founder, Anthony Levandowski, the former star engineer whose mass download of files is the heart of Waymo's suit. The court specifically relied on Waymo's strategy to divide and conquer, an effort that kept its claims against Levandowski out of court and the other defendants out of arbitration. As Judge Alsup stated, Waymo could not treat the two as "fungible targets."
The issue of vicarious liability doesn't arise much in the case law, at least in terms of nuanced legal analysis. One line of cases holds that respondeat superior, or vicarious liability, is not available under the Uniform Trade Secrets Act on the grounds that it is a common-law remedy preempted by the statute. Other cases take a more flexible, case-by-case approach, relying on the equities. Judge Alsup's idiosyncratic opinion avoids this discussion entirely, and it's bereft of a single case citation. That doesn't make it uninteresting or even wrong.
To me, the better approach - one textually consistent with the state and federal statutes - is to assess each defendant separately and to determine whether the relevant conduct for each amounts to misappropriation. This is, I think, what Judge Alsup is saying. He eschews any reference to statutory preemption, but it's just a different way of getting to the same result.
Maryland Non-Compete Agreements
Judge Paul Grimm, another total judicial rock-star, struck down a five-year, market-based non-competition clause against a high-level engineer, a ruling summarized in Allied Fire Protection, Inc. v. Thai, 2017 WL 4354802 (D. Md. Oct. 2, 2017). The particular non-compete had the feel of being an amalgamation of form clauses, designed specifically to instruct lawyers on how not to draft non-competes.
For starters, the duration was five years - something sure to align the court with the affected employee. Those limits may be acceptable in the sale-of-business context, where there's equal bargaining power, but they almost never have any justification for at-will employees. Then the employer decided to bar the employee from working in a "similar" business with any of the plaintiff's former, current, or future clients. No parameters. No illustration of why. No common sense.
Judge Grimm's ruling that the non-compete was not tailored to protect a business interest, in the main, is not surprising. But it is significant that it arose in the context of a motion to dismiss, and not after the evaluation of evidence at the injunction or summary-judgment stage. These kinds of early, case-dispositive rulings happen all too frequently, but they embody a pragmatic approach sorely needed in litigation featuring an asymmetry in resources. Judge Grimm was careful to note the lack of allegations demonstrating the need for such broad covenants, a point that enabled the early dismissal.
Practice tip: if you're an employer, never lead with a frivolous argument. For reasons that confound, the employer decided it was a good idea to challenge the removal petition - the case originated in State court - on the grounds that removal jurisdiction violated Article I, § 10 of the United States Constitution - the so-called impairment-of-contracts clause. But as Judge Grimm noted, that clause applies to the States, not the federal government (and it was, after the federal government's jurisdiction that was challenged constitutionally). This approach to argument does nothing to endear one to the court.
Forum-Selection Clauses Following Atlantic Marine
On to a more challenging venue issue.
Venue, jurisdiction, and choice-of-law are heavily litigated procedural issues in non-compete and trade secrets litigation. Though it may seem like in-the-weeds, lawyer drivel, questions of procedure can be consequential. For instance, a few years back, Illinois courts held that Florida choice-of-law clauses are unenforceable because they contravene public policy. If that issue weren't litigated, cases may have come out differently.
Venue clauses may be equally as important. The Supreme Court, in Atlantic Marine Construction Co v. U.S. District Court, endorsed forum-selection clauses and has held courts must honor them in all but the most unusual cases. Practically, that means that only certain public interests (outside of any interests the litigants assert) will justify a transfer when a forum-selection clause is present. That means litigants cannot get out of a choice-of-venue clause if it is inconvenient to them. Predictably, district courts have followed Atlantic Marine and have cut back on the number of transfer orders in federal non-compete cases.
The Third Circuit, this Summer, addressed a difficult question under Atlantic Marine: how should courts apply the ruling when some, but not all, defendants are bound to forum-selection clauses that designate different federal districts? Get ready for some freakin' procedure, folks...
According to the court, there's a four-step inquiry (always a BAD sign). First, courts will apply Atlantic Marine to parties with forum-selection clauses, meaning their claims may be severed and transferred to the agreed-upon forum.
Second, courts then consider public and private interests related to the non-contracting parties (such as a corporate defendant with no direct contractual relationship to the former employer). Here the factors may suggest that the same forum is appropriate for both the contracting and non-contracting parties. And that may be enough for the court to kick or keep the whole action.
Third, if the court finds that the first two steps point in opposite directions, then it must consider severing the claims. That means that a court may need to transfer the action as to some defendants while retaining jurisdiction over others. For instance, a court may lack personal jurisdiction over a non-contracting defendant. It couldn't keep the case, in that instance, for efficiency reasons.
Fourth, if the issue of severance is not clear, then the court must evaluate "efficiency" interests and the non-contracting parties' private interests. Here, a court could find that public interests "overwhelmingly" outweigh the parties' interest in upholding the venue clause and thereby decline to enforce it.
The application of this four-step approach is fairly intricate, but the circuit court's analysis will resemble many of the same issues that arise in multi-defendant non-compete litigation, where individuals have forum-selection clauses and the new employer operates in a venue remote from the contractually chosen one. A link to the opinion is available here.
***
I am not sure I understand the point of drafting worthless, uninteresting blog posts. But if you are a blogger (or aspiring to start one), then I would highly recommend reading the latest entry on the Employment Trial Report. It's a classic example of what not to do. This post caught my eye when it showed up in a blast e-mail through Lexology and purported to "analyze" a $6.8 million trade-secrets judgment in California. Sounds f**kin' awesome, bruh!
No. For starters, don't waste everyone's time talking about a default judgment involving a defendant who has no legal representation and who "failed to participate in the subsequent damages proceedings." What is the takeaway there? It's good to have a lawyer? It's advisable to contest damages? It's best to show up in court for a hearing?
And then don't tell us how the judgment demonstrates that companies "need to be vigilant and act quickly and decisively when it appears" there's theft by an insider. Has anyone ever counseled an employer that, in such a situation, companies should be sluggish and move slowly and equivocally?
Sorry, but you clog up the blogosphere and so you deserve some opprobrium. Take a stand. Say something interesting. Offer a viewpoint. Don't spew drivel. And I could care less if the mandate from the firm's Executive Committee was to fill up the site with more posts...
***
Thad Felton over at Greensfelder in Chicago writes about the Attorney General's non-compete lawsuit against Check Into Cash of Illinois, Inc., calling the move "somewhat unusual." A better description would have been "entirely appropriate." The Freedom to Work Act, signed into law effective January 1, 2017, bars employers from using covenants not to compete against so-called "low-wage employees." This is a move that has gained traction across the United States, as State legislatures seek to pare back the use of overbroad restraints that do nothing to promote economic freedom and serve only to stifle competition.
According to the Attorney General's suit, brought under the Freedom to Work Act, the common law, and the Consumer Fraud and Deceptive Business Practices Act, the affected employees were store clerks, assistant managers, and managers, many of whom were paid on an hourly basis. The non-compete, recited in a pain-staking block quote, is oppressively overbroad and disconnected to any legitimate business interest. It's obviously unenforceable, despite the thatchy, semantic jungle in which the contractual language is buried.
A copy of the Attorney General's complaint is available here.
Friday, March 3, 2017
The Reading List (2017, No. 9): The First Defend Trade Secrets Act Verdict Arrives
Non-Compete and Trade Secrets News for the week ended March 3, 2017
***
Defend Trade Secrets Act
On February 24, 2017, a jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania rendered a verdict in favor of Dalmatia Import Group and against FoodMatch, Inc. under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. As of this posting date, the verdict is not available for viewing, but McDermott Will & Emery (counsel for plaintiff) reports that the judgment will exceed $5 million.
The case grew out of FoodMatch's product launch of what Dalmatia called a "copycat line of fruit spreads." FoodMatch previously had been a Dalmatia distributor in the United States but terminated that relationship and began its own competing line of products. FoodMatch also purportedly engaged Dalmatia's contract manufacturer, who apparently knew of the fruit spread recipes, to develop a competing product line.
The DTSA is largely consistent with state law in terms of the damages remedies available to aggrieved plaintiffs like Dalmatia. It is important to note, too, that this was not just a DTSA case; Dalmatia claimed counterfeiting under the Lanham Act. And though the case seemed to progress quickly to verdict given the DTSA's short history (it was signed into law on May 11, 2016), Dalmatia filed the case well before then and added the DTSA claim later.
Nevada Legislator Introduces Non-Compete Bill
Nevada made news last year for soundly rejecting the blue-pencil doctrine. This year, an Assemblyman has introduced Bill No. 149, which would limit non-competition agreements to a duration of 3 months after the end of employment. The bill further codifies the rule-of-reason analysis used by Nevada courts currently. If a company entered into an agreement with a longer, and therefore statutorily unreasonable, duration, it would be subject to a fine of up to $5,000.
The bill has been referred to the Committee and Commerce and Labor. A PDF copy of the bill is available here.
Fee Awards in Texas
Try making sense of this development. A Harris County, Texas jury awarded an employee nearly $200,000 in attorneys' fees after the jury found his ex-employer pursued a trade secrets misappropriation claim in bad faith.
But the same jury awarded the employer nearly $500,000 in attorneys' fees after finding the employee failed to comply with a confidentiality clause. It's hard for me to understand how to reconcile the two awards. A blog post further describes this rather contentious suit.
Overbroad Non-Competes in Louisiana
As I've discussed several times in the past, Louisiana has a very nuanced framework for non-compete agreements. Most importantly, non-competes must specify a parish or municipality where the restriction applies, and the employer must do business there. Courts have been strictly applying this language.
In Affordable Roofing v. Artigues, 2:16-cv-16872 (E.D. La.), a federal district court determined that a non-compete applying "in any state" where the employer conducts business was void. The employer conceded this but argued the employee in any event knew precisely where the employer did business. As is fairly obvious, such an interpretation would violate the plain language of the statute. A copy of the Order is available here.
***
Defend Trade Secrets Act
On February 24, 2017, a jury in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania rendered a verdict in favor of Dalmatia Import Group and against FoodMatch, Inc. under the Defend Trade Secrets Act. As of this posting date, the verdict is not available for viewing, but McDermott Will & Emery (counsel for plaintiff) reports that the judgment will exceed $5 million.
The case grew out of FoodMatch's product launch of what Dalmatia called a "copycat line of fruit spreads." FoodMatch previously had been a Dalmatia distributor in the United States but terminated that relationship and began its own competing line of products. FoodMatch also purportedly engaged Dalmatia's contract manufacturer, who apparently knew of the fruit spread recipes, to develop a competing product line.
The DTSA is largely consistent with state law in terms of the damages remedies available to aggrieved plaintiffs like Dalmatia. It is important to note, too, that this was not just a DTSA case; Dalmatia claimed counterfeiting under the Lanham Act. And though the case seemed to progress quickly to verdict given the DTSA's short history (it was signed into law on May 11, 2016), Dalmatia filed the case well before then and added the DTSA claim later.
Nevada Legislator Introduces Non-Compete Bill
Nevada made news last year for soundly rejecting the blue-pencil doctrine. This year, an Assemblyman has introduced Bill No. 149, which would limit non-competition agreements to a duration of 3 months after the end of employment. The bill further codifies the rule-of-reason analysis used by Nevada courts currently. If a company entered into an agreement with a longer, and therefore statutorily unreasonable, duration, it would be subject to a fine of up to $5,000.
The bill has been referred to the Committee and Commerce and Labor. A PDF copy of the bill is available here.
Fee Awards in Texas
Try making sense of this development. A Harris County, Texas jury awarded an employee nearly $200,000 in attorneys' fees after the jury found his ex-employer pursued a trade secrets misappropriation claim in bad faith.
But the same jury awarded the employer nearly $500,000 in attorneys' fees after finding the employee failed to comply with a confidentiality clause. It's hard for me to understand how to reconcile the two awards. A blog post further describes this rather contentious suit.
Overbroad Non-Competes in Louisiana
As I've discussed several times in the past, Louisiana has a very nuanced framework for non-compete agreements. Most importantly, non-competes must specify a parish or municipality where the restriction applies, and the employer must do business there. Courts have been strictly applying this language.
In Affordable Roofing v. Artigues, 2:16-cv-16872 (E.D. La.), a federal district court determined that a non-compete applying "in any state" where the employer conducts business was void. The employer conceded this but argued the employee in any event knew precisely where the employer did business. As is fairly obvious, such an interpretation would violate the plain language of the statute. A copy of the Order is available here.
Friday, February 24, 2017
The Reading List (2017, No. 8): An Example of How Differently Courts Treat Non-Competes
Non-Compete and Trade Secret News for the week ended February 24, 2017
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Overbroad Non-Competes in Virginia
This week's first two updates could be called a Tale of Two Non-Competes.
A federal district court in Virginia ruled that an employee's non-compete agreement, ancillary to a stock option award, was unenforceable because of its overly broad geographic scope. This case illustrates the perils of linking a restrictive covenant to customers or markets about which an employee has "confidential information." For starters, that may require a court to assess how the agreement treats that defined term - a notorious plot of unruly thatch.
But additionally, a restrictive covenant that is drafted this way often lacks objective parameters. In NVR, Inc. v. Nelson, the covenant's geographic term extended to areas "from which [the employee] received...Confidential Information." Because he received information digitally and since there was no way to tell from where the information originated, the non-compete was overbroad. A copy of the opinion denying the employer's temporary restraining order motion is available here.
Preliminary Injunction in New Jersey
The employer fared better with pursuing injunctive relief in Menasha Packaging Co. v. Pratt Industries, a New Jersey case in which the district court applied Illinois law. This dispute stems from the movement of three ex-Menasha employees to Pratt Industries during the period in which Menasha's client, Mondelez, had put up a packaging contract for bid. Unlike the NVR case, the competition and the immediate threat to Menasha were more tangible and apparent from the record. Menasha also sought very limited enforcement of the restrictive covenant, despite some dispute about whether the contract was facially overbroad. The court enjoined the employees' work with Mondelez, on Pratt's behalf, for the 18-month non-solicit term. The case illustrates the wisdom of narrowing the dispute and seeking relief that is directly tailored to the conduct in question. A copy of the New Jersey' court's preliminary injunction opinion is available here.
Non-Competes in Bankruptcy
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois held in United Providers, Inc. v. Pagan that a claim for intentional breach of contract is dischargeable in bankruptcy. The breach arose from the debtor's alleged violation of an employee no-hire agreement in the medical billing field.
The nondischargeability provision of the Bankruptcy Code for "willful and malicious" injuries, Section 523(a)(6), requires that the breach of contract also give rise to an independent tort claim (e.g., breach of fiduciary duty, trade secrets misappropriation). And even then, a court's finding of nondischargeability is not guaranteed. The court's opinion makes sense because many breach-of-contract scenarios give rise to an economically efficient result, regardless of whether the employer likes it or feels as if it has been the victim of a maliciously designed plot. Only if the underlying conduct is intended to produce a harmful result will a viable nondischargeability argument arise. The opinion is available here.
***
One of the more interesting trade-secret filings in a long time comes from the Central District of California, where Songkick has amended its suit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster to allege trade secrets theft. The 91-page Complaint is quite a read, but the pertinent allegations of trade-secret theft appear to rest on a departed executive's misappropriation of thousands of documents in order to benefit Ticketmaster's "Artist Services" division, which is now known as OnTour. Consumers may be familiar with this type of service, since it promotes ticket pre-sales, fan clubs, and more direct fan engagement. Songkick's trade-secret theft allegations bolster a more robust antitrust claim against Live Nation, which vigorously has disputed the veracity of the accusations.
For those interested in exploring the data concerning non-competes' impact on wages and mobility, please see the University of Michigan Working Paper entitled Locked In? The Enforceability of Covenants not to Compete and the Careers of High-Tech Workers. The paper details a number of interesting conclusions, including that technology workers in higher enforcement states (think Florida) earn lower wages than their counterparts in lower enforcement states (think California). This at least seems to support the notion that employers do not share the marginal gains from non-compete regimes with their existing employees, a theoretical justification many on the pro-enforcement side frequently offer.
***
Overbroad Non-Competes in Virginia
This week's first two updates could be called a Tale of Two Non-Competes.
A federal district court in Virginia ruled that an employee's non-compete agreement, ancillary to a stock option award, was unenforceable because of its overly broad geographic scope. This case illustrates the perils of linking a restrictive covenant to customers or markets about which an employee has "confidential information." For starters, that may require a court to assess how the agreement treats that defined term - a notorious plot of unruly thatch.
But additionally, a restrictive covenant that is drafted this way often lacks objective parameters. In NVR, Inc. v. Nelson, the covenant's geographic term extended to areas "from which [the employee] received...Confidential Information." Because he received information digitally and since there was no way to tell from where the information originated, the non-compete was overbroad. A copy of the opinion denying the employer's temporary restraining order motion is available here.
Preliminary Injunction in New Jersey
The employer fared better with pursuing injunctive relief in Menasha Packaging Co. v. Pratt Industries, a New Jersey case in which the district court applied Illinois law. This dispute stems from the movement of three ex-Menasha employees to Pratt Industries during the period in which Menasha's client, Mondelez, had put up a packaging contract for bid. Unlike the NVR case, the competition and the immediate threat to Menasha were more tangible and apparent from the record. Menasha also sought very limited enforcement of the restrictive covenant, despite some dispute about whether the contract was facially overbroad. The court enjoined the employees' work with Mondelez, on Pratt's behalf, for the 18-month non-solicit term. The case illustrates the wisdom of narrowing the dispute and seeking relief that is directly tailored to the conduct in question. A copy of the New Jersey' court's preliminary injunction opinion is available here.
Non-Competes in Bankruptcy
The United States Bankruptcy Court for the Northern District of Illinois held in United Providers, Inc. v. Pagan that a claim for intentional breach of contract is dischargeable in bankruptcy. The breach arose from the debtor's alleged violation of an employee no-hire agreement in the medical billing field.
The nondischargeability provision of the Bankruptcy Code for "willful and malicious" injuries, Section 523(a)(6), requires that the breach of contract also give rise to an independent tort claim (e.g., breach of fiduciary duty, trade secrets misappropriation). And even then, a court's finding of nondischargeability is not guaranteed. The court's opinion makes sense because many breach-of-contract scenarios give rise to an economically efficient result, regardless of whether the employer likes it or feels as if it has been the victim of a maliciously designed plot. Only if the underlying conduct is intended to produce a harmful result will a viable nondischargeability argument arise. The opinion is available here.
***
One of the more interesting trade-secret filings in a long time comes from the Central District of California, where Songkick has amended its suit against Live Nation Entertainment and Ticketmaster to allege trade secrets theft. The 91-page Complaint is quite a read, but the pertinent allegations of trade-secret theft appear to rest on a departed executive's misappropriation of thousands of documents in order to benefit Ticketmaster's "Artist Services" division, which is now known as OnTour. Consumers may be familiar with this type of service, since it promotes ticket pre-sales, fan clubs, and more direct fan engagement. Songkick's trade-secret theft allegations bolster a more robust antitrust claim against Live Nation, which vigorously has disputed the veracity of the accusations.
For those interested in exploring the data concerning non-competes' impact on wages and mobility, please see the University of Michigan Working Paper entitled Locked In? The Enforceability of Covenants not to Compete and the Careers of High-Tech Workers. The paper details a number of interesting conclusions, including that technology workers in higher enforcement states (think Florida) earn lower wages than their counterparts in lower enforcement states (think California). This at least seems to support the notion that employers do not share the marginal gains from non-compete regimes with their existing employees, a theoretical justification many on the pro-enforcement side frequently offer.
Tuesday, October 11, 2016
Non-Competes Gone Wrong: The Unneeded Belt-and-Suspenders Approach
When you have reviewed as many non-competes as I have, it doesn't take long to spot major red flags. They often times arise in the context of at-will employment contracts for regular, average, run-of-the mill employees who do not serve in an executive capacity. Indeed, the oddity is that this group of contracts for people who pose the lowest threat tends to be the most oppressive and poorly drafted.
Here are the 7 most common red flags associated with unreasonable non-compete contracts:
Here are the 7 most common red flags associated with unreasonable non-compete contracts:
- A broad non-compete clause that prohibits work in an entire industry, with no limiting condition narrowing the covenant to a specified group of jobs.
- A vague definition of a "competitive business," which is sometimes nominally used to define the scope of the non-compete restriction.
- A broad geographic scope that may be commensurate with the employer's line of business, but not with where the employee has developed her sphere of influence.
- A non-solicitation covenant that contains a broad, untethered definition of "customer."
- A non-solicitation covenant that extends to prospective customers who never developed a relationship with the employer.
- A confidentiality clause with no time limit.
- A confidentiality clause that contains an overbroad definition of "confidential information," suggesting it can be a backdoor non-compete clause that extends in perpetuity.
These covenants - particularly when applied to mid-tier employees - are frequently not litigated because the cost of doing so is prohibitively high for the employee. To be sure, most employees will make a rational economic choice to incur those costs only if (a) the new employer is willing to subsidize the effort (rare), or (b) the potential long-term gain from invalidating the agreement exceeds the sum of (i) litigation costs and (ii) discounted risk of a non-indemnifiable damages judgment (more rare). Frankly, the economics often just don't work.
When these agreements do make their way into court, judges will notice the seven red flags I identified above. My experience is that they're willing to overlook one or two as the work product of an overzealous attorney. However, when several (or sometimes) all of these factors are present, courts are inclined to strike the agreement and view it as a blatant overreach on the employer's part.
Sometimes this occurs at the earliest stages of litigation before the expensive discovery process begins. This is what occurred in Seneca One Finance, Inc. v. Bloshuk, No. 16-cv-1848, 2016 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 138866 (D. Md. Oct. 6, 2016), a case in which 6 of the 7 red flags were present in an employee's non-compete agreement. The Maryland court had little trouble tossing the case after the employee sought an early dismissal.
One of the structural impediments to non-compete litigation is the relative unwillingness of many judges (the Maryland court being an exception) to dismiss cases early. I have been an advocate of "quick-look" proceedings in non-compete litigation as a means to tease out facially overbroad agreements and those where consideration is sorely lacking. This process cuts against the design of our adversarial system where, for better or worse, the civil discovery process weeds out cases through sheer attrition.
The problem, in my mind, is that discovery attrition can work in cases where the parties are on a level playing field to litigate (many patent cases), or where the party with a relative lack of resources has the ability to recover monetary damages (discrimination or personal injury cases). In a non-compete dispute, neither of those fact patterns is usually present. And if we're to maintain a system where the freedom to compete and the freedom to contract stand in equipoise, then a quick-look system may be the only route to achieve that.
Wednesday, July 15, 2015
Seventh Circuit Smartly Avoids Fifield Issue, Disses Illinois Law
In the detritus of Illinois law following the Fifield v. Premier Dealers Services case, one federal case actually appeared to have the potential to reshape how state courts (not to mention an increasing number of lower federal courts) viewed the issue of non-compete consideration for at-will employees.
Instant Technology, LLC v. DiFazio (7th Circuit, Nos. 14-2132 & 14-2243) was one of the diversity cases where the court followed Fifield and endorsed the two-year, bright-line consideration rule, which holds that non-compete/non-solicit covenants are enforceable only if an at-will employee has been employed two years or more. (This, of course, assumes the only consideration offered was employment itself, not something more tangible.) Other diversity cases declined to follow Fifield on the grounds that it did not accurately state the law in Illinois. Those cases have said that if the Illinois Supreme Court were confronted with the issue, it would come out with a different rule than that set forth in Fifield.
Instant Technology was always somewhat of a flimsy candidate for a broad, doctrinal repudiation or endorsement of Fifield, since the case appeared to founder on whether the covenants in the IT staffing business supported a "legitimate business interest." The district court found not, and the Seventh Circuit held that this finding was supported by the evidence. And on that score, Judge Easterbrook's opinion in Instant Technology gave nary a mention of Fifield or the current debate over consideration.
However, at oral argument, the Court discussed Fifield at length. And Judge Easterbrook is not the kind to wilt away and blindly assume the appellate court got it right in Fifield. He would seem to have little trouble excoriating the state court rule if he felt the legal standard was groundless. But his opinion avoided the issue, so we have nothing authoritative from a case that at least held out the possibility of being a game-changer in the consideration debate.
But, not surprisingly, Judge Easterbrook used the opportunity to take a not-so-veiled shot at Illinois law, and in particular the "totality of the circumstances" test from Reliable Fire Equipment Co. v. Arredondo. That case changed the analytical framework for determining how an employer can establish a legitimate business interest to support a non-compete. It discarded the traditional approach - which looked at whether an employer had a near-permanent relationship with clients or whether it sought to protect confidential business information the employee subsequently tried to use - and set forth a rather malleable (cavernous?) test that considered the totality of the facts from the case.
In Instant Technology, the IT staffing firm disputed the district court's analysis and basically said the judge didn't consider "everything," without specifying what it exactly it was that the court missed.
Judge Easterbrook says:
"Making validity turn on 'the totality of the circumstances' - which can't be determined until litigation years after the events - makes it hard to predict which covenants are enforceable. If employers can't predict which covenants courts will enforce, they will not make investments that may depend on covenants' validity, and they will not pay employees higher wages for agreeing to bear potentially costly terms. Both employers and employees may be worse off as a result. Risk-averse employees who hope that their covenants will be unenforceable, but fear that they will be sustained, may linger in jobs they would be happier (and more productive) leaving. But our rule of decision comes from state law. Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938). Reforming that law, or trying to undermine it, is beyond our remit."
This passage largely pivots off many of the questions Judge David Hamilton asked during oral argument in the case. Judge Hamilton was concerned about the blank-slate landscape of Illinois law (a term used by Instant Technology's counsel) and the lack of apparent predictability in an area that demands it. Predictability and certainty usually arrive in the form of bright-line rules, which (oddly enough) Fifield establishes. As for the broader question of reasonableness, the Seventh Circuit seems to be saying that Illinois employers got what they asked for: flexibility. The price? Often times, disappointment.
Instant Technology, LLC v. DiFazio (7th Circuit, Nos. 14-2132 & 14-2243) was one of the diversity cases where the court followed Fifield and endorsed the two-year, bright-line consideration rule, which holds that non-compete/non-solicit covenants are enforceable only if an at-will employee has been employed two years or more. (This, of course, assumes the only consideration offered was employment itself, not something more tangible.) Other diversity cases declined to follow Fifield on the grounds that it did not accurately state the law in Illinois. Those cases have said that if the Illinois Supreme Court were confronted with the issue, it would come out with a different rule than that set forth in Fifield.
Instant Technology was always somewhat of a flimsy candidate for a broad, doctrinal repudiation or endorsement of Fifield, since the case appeared to founder on whether the covenants in the IT staffing business supported a "legitimate business interest." The district court found not, and the Seventh Circuit held that this finding was supported by the evidence. And on that score, Judge Easterbrook's opinion in Instant Technology gave nary a mention of Fifield or the current debate over consideration.
However, at oral argument, the Court discussed Fifield at length. And Judge Easterbrook is not the kind to wilt away and blindly assume the appellate court got it right in Fifield. He would seem to have little trouble excoriating the state court rule if he felt the legal standard was groundless. But his opinion avoided the issue, so we have nothing authoritative from a case that at least held out the possibility of being a game-changer in the consideration debate.
But, not surprisingly, Judge Easterbrook used the opportunity to take a not-so-veiled shot at Illinois law, and in particular the "totality of the circumstances" test from Reliable Fire Equipment Co. v. Arredondo. That case changed the analytical framework for determining how an employer can establish a legitimate business interest to support a non-compete. It discarded the traditional approach - which looked at whether an employer had a near-permanent relationship with clients or whether it sought to protect confidential business information the employee subsequently tried to use - and set forth a rather malleable (cavernous?) test that considered the totality of the facts from the case.
In Instant Technology, the IT staffing firm disputed the district court's analysis and basically said the judge didn't consider "everything," without specifying what it exactly it was that the court missed.
Judge Easterbrook says:
"Making validity turn on 'the totality of the circumstances' - which can't be determined until litigation years after the events - makes it hard to predict which covenants are enforceable. If employers can't predict which covenants courts will enforce, they will not make investments that may depend on covenants' validity, and they will not pay employees higher wages for agreeing to bear potentially costly terms. Both employers and employees may be worse off as a result. Risk-averse employees who hope that their covenants will be unenforceable, but fear that they will be sustained, may linger in jobs they would be happier (and more productive) leaving. But our rule of decision comes from state law. Erie R.R. v. Tompkins, 304 U.S. 64 (1938). Reforming that law, or trying to undermine it, is beyond our remit."
This passage largely pivots off many of the questions Judge David Hamilton asked during oral argument in the case. Judge Hamilton was concerned about the blank-slate landscape of Illinois law (a term used by Instant Technology's counsel) and the lack of apparent predictability in an area that demands it. Predictability and certainty usually arrive in the form of bright-line rules, which (oddly enough) Fifield establishes. As for the broader question of reasonableness, the Seventh Circuit seems to be saying that Illinois employers got what they asked for: flexibility. The price? Often times, disappointment.
Thursday, October 23, 2014
Seventh Circuit Appeal Downplays Fifield Consideration Rule
The federal case of Instant Technology LLC v. DiFazio is somewhat of a rare breed in that the parties tried the case to the end. Most business disputes settle, frequently after an initial injunction hearing, and this generally holds true when the case arises from an acrimonious divorce (as was certainly the case with the key players in DiFazio).
I wrote last year on the case, primarily because the district court followed the Illinois Appellate Court's ruling in Fifield v. Premier Dealer Services, Inc. and invalidated several non-compete agreements on the grounds that the employees were not employed for the required two years to vest the contracts with consideration. (Remember, for at-will employees in Illinois, Fifield established the two-year rule if the sole consideration was the job itself.) On the facts in DiFazio, the case appeared to have some strengths for the plaintiffs, but like many non-compete disputes, the facts only get you so far. There's still the law to deal with, not to mention judicial distaste for these types of cases. Instant Technology had trouble during its bench trial on a number of fronts, including its presentation of damages.
Seeing that the case went up on appeal, I was interested to see what role the Fifield rule would play in the Seventh Circuit. Instant Technology's brief is now in.
Fifield appears to have taken a back seat, though that's not to say the Seventh Circuit won't issue some kind of analysis or statement about how the Supreme Court of Illinois might weigh in. The brief is long, but only a few pages mention Fifield. And the analysis seems intentionally thin. The reason could be that the employees who presented Instant Technology with a Fifield problem appear to be secondary players. Many appellate lawyers will abandon issues on appeal so that the reviewing court does not get too lost in a sea of issues.
Interestingly, Instant Technology shifted gears after losing its bench trial and hired a new law firm, Much Shelist, to represent it on appeal. That firm, ironically, represented the winning party in Fifield and helped create the two-year rule that now presents some problems for Instant Technology.
Instant Technology detoured around Fifield in an interesting way. Essentially, it argued the Supreme Court might use its overall "totality of the circumstances" to assess not only whether the covenant is reasonable, but also whether the contract has sufficient consideration. It gave an example from the facts of the case itself. One of the employees apparently had a prior stint with Instant Technology. In the employer's view, this prior employment should be a factor bearing on whether the new contract contains enough consideration.
I find it fairly unconvincing that a court would use the overall reasonableness test to assess the adequacy of consideration because it conflates two separate inquiries. The "totality of the circumstances" approach is a judicial check to weigh the contract terms with the asserted business interest. There's nothing from the Supreme Court's precedent that suggests it's meant to apply to an issue of contract formation. Furthermore, combining the consideration argument in the manner Instant Technology proposes would allow an enforcing party to use the same facts for multiple purposes. This is improper bootstrapping. Put another way, the facts that help an employer illustrate a protectable interest cannot also help it show the contract was formed properly.
Consideration should address what an employer gave up or what an employee gained by signing the contract. Fifield holds that the job itself only sometimes can be consideration because that job can be taken away. Take an example: if an employer agrees the employee only can be terminated for cause (with severance rights for a termination without cause) for a period of two years, then it's giving up a core element of the traditional at-will relationship. That's consideration. Determining whether the employee received access to customers or confidential information is not a consideration issue because it's tied intrinsically to whether the covenant terms are reasonable. Instant Technology's position would meld the two, and I think that's inappropriate.
I have said before that I am no great fan of Fifield, but I don't think we can fix it by creating more confusion in this area of the law.
I wrote last year on the case, primarily because the district court followed the Illinois Appellate Court's ruling in Fifield v. Premier Dealer Services, Inc. and invalidated several non-compete agreements on the grounds that the employees were not employed for the required two years to vest the contracts with consideration. (Remember, for at-will employees in Illinois, Fifield established the two-year rule if the sole consideration was the job itself.) On the facts in DiFazio, the case appeared to have some strengths for the plaintiffs, but like many non-compete disputes, the facts only get you so far. There's still the law to deal with, not to mention judicial distaste for these types of cases. Instant Technology had trouble during its bench trial on a number of fronts, including its presentation of damages.
Seeing that the case went up on appeal, I was interested to see what role the Fifield rule would play in the Seventh Circuit. Instant Technology's brief is now in.
Fifield appears to have taken a back seat, though that's not to say the Seventh Circuit won't issue some kind of analysis or statement about how the Supreme Court of Illinois might weigh in. The brief is long, but only a few pages mention Fifield. And the analysis seems intentionally thin. The reason could be that the employees who presented Instant Technology with a Fifield problem appear to be secondary players. Many appellate lawyers will abandon issues on appeal so that the reviewing court does not get too lost in a sea of issues.
Interestingly, Instant Technology shifted gears after losing its bench trial and hired a new law firm, Much Shelist, to represent it on appeal. That firm, ironically, represented the winning party in Fifield and helped create the two-year rule that now presents some problems for Instant Technology.
Instant Technology detoured around Fifield in an interesting way. Essentially, it argued the Supreme Court might use its overall "totality of the circumstances" to assess not only whether the covenant is reasonable, but also whether the contract has sufficient consideration. It gave an example from the facts of the case itself. One of the employees apparently had a prior stint with Instant Technology. In the employer's view, this prior employment should be a factor bearing on whether the new contract contains enough consideration.
I find it fairly unconvincing that a court would use the overall reasonableness test to assess the adequacy of consideration because it conflates two separate inquiries. The "totality of the circumstances" approach is a judicial check to weigh the contract terms with the asserted business interest. There's nothing from the Supreme Court's precedent that suggests it's meant to apply to an issue of contract formation. Furthermore, combining the consideration argument in the manner Instant Technology proposes would allow an enforcing party to use the same facts for multiple purposes. This is improper bootstrapping. Put another way, the facts that help an employer illustrate a protectable interest cannot also help it show the contract was formed properly.
Consideration should address what an employer gave up or what an employee gained by signing the contract. Fifield holds that the job itself only sometimes can be consideration because that job can be taken away. Take an example: if an employer agrees the employee only can be terminated for cause (with severance rights for a termination without cause) for a period of two years, then it's giving up a core element of the traditional at-will relationship. That's consideration. Determining whether the employee received access to customers or confidential information is not a consideration issue because it's tied intrinsically to whether the covenant terms are reasonable. Instant Technology's position would meld the two, and I think that's inappropriate.
I have said before that I am no great fan of Fifield, but I don't think we can fix it by creating more confusion in this area of the law.
Friday, March 7, 2014
The Janitor Analogy, Once Again
"The agreement is so broad that it would prohibit my client from working for his new company even as a janitor!"
- Comment attributed to every defense attorney in every non-compete case, generally accompanied by arms flailing up and down violently.
***
Despite my sarcasm, this isn't a terrible argument.
In fact, it's made repeatedly with great success. And the analogy has managed to work its way into one court opinion after another.
The cases in which you see this generally involve a broad non-compete agreement, as opposed to a more limited non-solicitation of customers restraint. The argument never works for a high-level executive because courts generally assume such executives have pervasive access to confidential information of their former employer, such that a tightly defined job-scope limitation isn't required based on the interest the company is trying to assert.
However, the argument has appeal when a mid-level sales person has a restrictive covenant that goes beyond his or her ability to service or solicit clients and that extends to a broader restriction more appropriate for those that develop products or manage the flow of confidential information. So the argument goes, the broad market-based covenant is not narrowly tailored to protect the interest (customer goodwill) the employee can impair.
Two North Carolina appellate decisions discuss broad non-competes in this context, and both came out in favor of the ex-employee. The cases are Horner Int'l Co. v. McKoy, No. COA13-964 (March 4, 2014), and CopyPro, Inc. v. Musgrove, No. COA13-297 (Feb. 4, 2014). Neither case breaks new ground, but they serve as strong illustrations of how courts examine broader covenants as applied to salespersons. Prohibitions on employment altogether for this class of employees will raise major red flags. The problems easily can be cured with more reasonably drawn non-solicitation of customers provisions.
On this score, though, there's a further problem percolating underneath the surface in restrictive covenant law. Too much, generally, is made of the need for a geographic limitation. While some businesses still are hyper-local, many aren't. As the economy continues to evolve and individual spheres of influence extend beyond particular geographic borders, courts are going to have to reformulate their enforceability tests to move away from a geographic analysis. The short concurrence in the McKoy case makes this point.
Changes to our economy pose a special challenge for lawyers who draft agreements for their employer clients. We have to begin paying more attention to scope limitations in non-competes contracts and tailoring contracts to the particular employee. This is an issue separate and apart from the utility of any geographic restraint. More and more, I am reviewing non-competes that have no real meaningful geographic restriction but which are more carefully defined in the type of role the employee would be restricted from assuming after his or her departure.
It's encouraging that drafting seems to have evolved in this respect. But as the North Carolina cases show, there still frequently is a large disconnect between the employee's activities and the employer's business, on the one hand, and the practical impact of the covenant language, on the other.
Wednesday, September 25, 2013
Old Georgia Law Still Invalidates Many Restrictive Covenants
When the Georgia General Assembly passed the Restrictive Covenant Act in 2009, it substantially changed the playing field between employers and employees. Under the common law, it was exceedingly difficult for employers to enforce anything but the most perfectly worded and narrowly tailored covenant. Cases repeatedly failed on the facial ambiguity or overbreadth of the covenant, leading to judicial invalidation. And the blue-pencil rule was not available to save overbroad (even slightly overbroad) contracts.
But the new Act did not become effective until 2010 and only applies to contracts entered into after November 3, 2010. A great many employees and independent contractors signed agreements well before that, and their enforceability continues to be subject to the old common law.
A recent district court summary judgment decision illustrates how strict this old common law actually is. The case involved a dispute in the credit-card merchant processing industry. This is a rapidly growing market where companies provide merchants - often, retailers - a wide range of credit-card processing services. Those services range from simple payment processing to mobile processing to "tokenization" (a fancy way of saying that the processing company will enable merchants to store credit card data safely and securely).
The defendant was an independent contractor who marketed the processor's services to merchants for a fee. In his Independent Contractor Agreement, he agreed to two broad covenants:
(1) An in-term non-compete restriction that prohibited him, during the term of his relationship with the plaintiff, from entering into agreements to solicit merchants for the merchant-acquiring program of any bank or third-party financial institution, or from entering "into any relationship with any organization...that would effect an indirect relationship with any" organization.
(2) A 5-year, post-termination non-solicitation restriction that prevented him from calling on the plaintiff's customers, regardless of whether he had a relationship with those customers.
The district court had little trouble under Georgia common law striking down both clauses. The ruling on the non-solicitation covenant was not much of a surprise, since Georgia law (like some other states) generally does not look favorably upon non-solicitation covenants that extend to customers the employee did not serve - particularly when there is no geographic restriction. And the 5-year term was well beyond the 2-year rule Georgia courts long have advocated.
The more surprising aspect of the ruling is the fact the court struck down the in-term non-compete arrangement. It held the general rules pertaining to non-compete agreements apply, even though it did not prohibit any post-termination activity. In-term covenants rarely are litigated because in an at-will environment, employees (or, as here, independent contractors) simply terminate the relationship before leaving to compete.
The court, though, struck the non-compete and held that its activity scope was unreasonable - mainly due to the quoted, italicized language above. The court found that the prohibition on the defendant from entering "into any relationship" with a bank was ambiguous and ill-defined. In reality, it didn't appear to be as broad as the court held. Rather, it seems the clear intent of the covenant was to prohibit the defendant from entering into a similar arrangement with another credit-card processor while he was soliciting merchants for the plaintiff. The language of the non-compete which the court deemed problematic only appeared to further restrict the plaintiff from circumventing this fairly clear covenant in a more indirect manner.
Still, the ruling indicates that courts often are troubled by restrictive covenants and their impact on competition as a whole. I've written before about how judges sometimes will gloss over a contract's intent to find an ambiguity, even though it's questionable such an ambiguity exists. That seems to be what happened here as well.
But the new Act did not become effective until 2010 and only applies to contracts entered into after November 3, 2010. A great many employees and independent contractors signed agreements well before that, and their enforceability continues to be subject to the old common law.
A recent district court summary judgment decision illustrates how strict this old common law actually is. The case involved a dispute in the credit-card merchant processing industry. This is a rapidly growing market where companies provide merchants - often, retailers - a wide range of credit-card processing services. Those services range from simple payment processing to mobile processing to "tokenization" (a fancy way of saying that the processing company will enable merchants to store credit card data safely and securely).
The defendant was an independent contractor who marketed the processor's services to merchants for a fee. In his Independent Contractor Agreement, he agreed to two broad covenants:
(1) An in-term non-compete restriction that prohibited him, during the term of his relationship with the plaintiff, from entering into agreements to solicit merchants for the merchant-acquiring program of any bank or third-party financial institution, or from entering "into any relationship with any organization...that would effect an indirect relationship with any" organization.
(2) A 5-year, post-termination non-solicitation restriction that prevented him from calling on the plaintiff's customers, regardless of whether he had a relationship with those customers.
The district court had little trouble under Georgia common law striking down both clauses. The ruling on the non-solicitation covenant was not much of a surprise, since Georgia law (like some other states) generally does not look favorably upon non-solicitation covenants that extend to customers the employee did not serve - particularly when there is no geographic restriction. And the 5-year term was well beyond the 2-year rule Georgia courts long have advocated.
The more surprising aspect of the ruling is the fact the court struck down the in-term non-compete arrangement. It held the general rules pertaining to non-compete agreements apply, even though it did not prohibit any post-termination activity. In-term covenants rarely are litigated because in an at-will environment, employees (or, as here, independent contractors) simply terminate the relationship before leaving to compete.
The court, though, struck the non-compete and held that its activity scope was unreasonable - mainly due to the quoted, italicized language above. The court found that the prohibition on the defendant from entering "into any relationship" with a bank was ambiguous and ill-defined. In reality, it didn't appear to be as broad as the court held. Rather, it seems the clear intent of the covenant was to prohibit the defendant from entering into a similar arrangement with another credit-card processor while he was soliciting merchants for the plaintiff. The language of the non-compete which the court deemed problematic only appeared to further restrict the plaintiff from circumventing this fairly clear covenant in a more indirect manner.
Still, the ruling indicates that courts often are troubled by restrictive covenants and their impact on competition as a whole. I've written before about how judges sometimes will gloss over a contract's intent to find an ambiguity, even though it's questionable such an ambiguity exists. That seems to be what happened here as well.
Thursday, April 25, 2013
When a Restriction on Soliciting "Prospective" Customers Is Unreasonable (and How to Fix It)
One of the most common drafting errors in non-solicitation covenants - clauses that limit customers to whom competitive services may be offered - is the reach to whom it applies.
In concept, the idea of a customer non-solicitation covenant is not that offensive to most judges. Companies often make convincing, successful arguments that covenants of this kind are narrowly crafted to protect their interest in maintaining business relationships with accounts that generate an ongoing stream of revenue. And, generally speaking, they reflect a careful balance between a company's interest and that which an individual has in maintaining the right to earn a living.
But companies run into trouble when the covenant stretches too far in protecting both former clients and prospective clients. Courts correctly reason that such covenants go beyond what is necessary to protect companies from unfair competition, principally because past and prospective customers aren't contributing to existing goodwill.
Cases reflecting this principal are widely available, with one of the most recent being Newport Capital Group, LLC v. Loehwing, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44479 (D.N.J. Mar. 28, 2013). That New Jersey case appears to be the first in that state to take a relatively bright-line approach to barring restrictions on an ex-employee's ability to service prospective customers.
What are the common problems associated with broad, customer-based restrictions? Here are the two most common:
1. The definition of "prospective" customer is perverse. Sometimes agreements define customer in such a way that it's impossible for the employee to even know who is off-limits. If, for instance, "prospective customer" includes any "individual identified by the company's employees as a potential client," it would be impossible to subject this restriction to verification.
2. "Prospective" customers is not defined at all. Most well-drafted non-solicitation covenants contain a definition of the key, triggering term - such as "Restricted Customer" or "Active Account." But many don't, and these agreements often cause judges to scratch their heads. If the term "prospective customer" is entirely undefined, it could mean that particular employee's prospect, another employee's prospect, or some prospect generally available to the market as a whole. Such a shifting, malleable definition causes the parties to interpret the agreement in such a way as to favor their position. Generally, ambiguities go in favor oft the party being restricted.
It's hard to create bright-line rules and there may be situations when companies can define "prospective" customers in a way to make it reasonable. They could limit the definition to:
1. Those prospects with whom the employee, or someone under employee's direct management, had been actively making a proposal at the time of his departure.
2. Those prospects identified on certain confidential lists of customers developed and maintained by the company and to which the employee had regular access.
3. Prospects for which the company's confidential information was used to solicit competitive products or services on behalf of a third-party.
It's entirely possible even these limiting definitions won't do. But they're certainly a good start in extending a non-solicitation covenant into otherwise forbidden terrain.
But companies run into trouble when the covenant stretches too far in protecting both former clients and prospective clients. Courts correctly reason that such covenants go beyond what is necessary to protect companies from unfair competition, principally because past and prospective customers aren't contributing to existing goodwill.
Cases reflecting this principal are widely available, with one of the most recent being Newport Capital Group, LLC v. Loehwing, 2013 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 44479 (D.N.J. Mar. 28, 2013). That New Jersey case appears to be the first in that state to take a relatively bright-line approach to barring restrictions on an ex-employee's ability to service prospective customers.
What are the common problems associated with broad, customer-based restrictions? Here are the two most common:
1. The definition of "prospective" customer is perverse. Sometimes agreements define customer in such a way that it's impossible for the employee to even know who is off-limits. If, for instance, "prospective customer" includes any "individual identified by the company's employees as a potential client," it would be impossible to subject this restriction to verification.
2. "Prospective" customers is not defined at all. Most well-drafted non-solicitation covenants contain a definition of the key, triggering term - such as "Restricted Customer" or "Active Account." But many don't, and these agreements often cause judges to scratch their heads. If the term "prospective customer" is entirely undefined, it could mean that particular employee's prospect, another employee's prospect, or some prospect generally available to the market as a whole. Such a shifting, malleable definition causes the parties to interpret the agreement in such a way as to favor their position. Generally, ambiguities go in favor oft the party being restricted.
It's hard to create bright-line rules and there may be situations when companies can define "prospective" customers in a way to make it reasonable. They could limit the definition to:
1. Those prospects with whom the employee, or someone under employee's direct management, had been actively making a proposal at the time of his departure.
2. Those prospects identified on certain confidential lists of customers developed and maintained by the company and to which the employee had regular access.
3. Prospects for which the company's confidential information was used to solicit competitive products or services on behalf of a third-party.
It's entirely possible even these limiting definitions won't do. But they're certainly a good start in extending a non-solicitation covenant into otherwise forbidden terrain.
Friday, January 4, 2013
Let's Start Year 5: Amazon.Com Loses Preliminary Fight Over Non-Compete Agreement
In mid-2012, Daniel Powers was terminated from his position with Amazon.com as a vice-president in Amazon Web Services. This is not the Amazon.com we all know and love. It was a segment that the retail consumer does not see and dealt with Amazon's effort to sell cloud computing services to businesses.
Powers, like most Amazon.com employees, signed a broad non-competition agreement that contained a number of restrictions. When Google hired him several months after his departure, it limited his job role to avoid any potential problems with Amazon.com. Nonetheless, it seems clear he was providing cloud computing services to Google, even if the parties disputed whether Google's products actually competed with those offered by Amazon.com.
After Amazon.com filed a preliminary injunction motion, a federal judge in Washington granted it very limited relief to enforce only that part of the contract that forbade Powers from working with Amazon.com's business customers. It did not enforce a broader non-compete restriction and found that Amazon.com had not submitted evidence to support an "inevitable disclosure" of trade secrets theory.
From my perspective, there are two interesting elements to this opinion.
First, the court specifically found that there was no evidence that Powers had intended to violate the customer non-solicitation covenant. Yet, it enforced it anyway by way of injunctive relief. This was a mistake. It is unclear to me how Amazon.com could establish a likelihood of success on this claim if there is no evidence of breach. The court's rationale was that Powers resisted the preliminary injunction motion, which suggests he might want to solicit his former business customers. But this proves too much, because any party could then go into court and base its request for an injunction solely on the fact that its opponent contests the motion.
Second, the court seemed to suggest that this non-solicitation covenant gave Amazon.com the protection it needed, and that a further ban on employment (the non-compete covenant) was not necessary. This is best summed up in the following passage:
"[Amazon's] ban on working with former customers serves to protect the goodwill it has built up with specific businesses. A general ban on Mr. Powers' competing against Amazon for other cloud computing customers is not a ban on unfair competition, it is a ban on competition generally."
When a business aims to protect customer goodwill, often times a general non-compete stretches too far. As the Powers court recognized, a customer non-solicitation is often the right fit to protect this interest.
The case is Amazon.com, Inc. v. Powers, C12-1911 (W.D. Wash.). A copy of the Order and Opinion on Amazon.com's preliminary injunction motion is contained below.
Amazon.com v. Powers - Order
Saturday, December 1, 2012
Georgia Case Demonstrates Importance of Addressing Choice of Venue and Law Clauses
Non-compete contracts entered into before the ratification of a constitutional amendment in 2011 are governed by the common law, and that body of law remains exceedingly treacherous for companies enforcing covenants.
A recent Georgia appellate case illustrates why procedural choice of venue and choice of law rules are vitally important.
The case of Carson v. Obor Holding Co., LLC yields a fairly common fact-pattern. Carson wore two hats for Obor Digital, a company that supplies staffing and software services in the defense industry. He was a member of the holding company (the defendant in the case) and an employee of the operating entity (not a defendant). He resigned in April of 2011, claiming "constructive discharge" by virtue of a reduction in his commissions. He then immediately filed suit in Georgia state court seeking an injunction against enforcement of the restrictive covenants contained in the Holding Company operating agreement.
The trial court dismissed his case, finding a Florida choice-of-forum clause was valid. That contract also required application of Florida law. Florida, in direct contrast to Georgia, is an exceedingly friendly enforcement state.
The Court of Appeals of Georgia reversed and held that the forum selection clause was invalid. It is important to note that courts won't invalidate forum selection clauses simply because one state's law (here, Georgia) is more favorable to employees than another state's (here, Florida). Rather, the difference has to implicate some fundamental public policy.
Florida tends to pose special problems with choice-of-forum and choice-of-law clauses if the suit is brought in another state. This is so for two primary reasons. First, Florida has a mandatory blue-pencil rule, requiring courts to modify overbroad covenants to the extent necessary for protection of the enforcing party. Georgia (pre-2011) is the exact opposite, essentially adopting an all-or-nothing policy. Second, Florida disallows a court from considering any employee hardships - economic or otherwise - that may result from enforcement. Georgia requires courts to consider such hardships in the balancing analysis. (Illinois adopted a similar rationale a few years back to invalidate Florida choice-of-law provisions in non-compete cases pending in Illinois courts.)
Turning to the substance of the covenants, Obor Holding's operating agreement had the following deficiencies in the restrictive covenants:
(1) The non-disclosure covenant did not define "confidential information," and it barred use of confidential information in perpetuity. Georgia law holds this is invalid if the non-disclosure for non-trade secret information is unlimited. (This is ridiculous, but maybe more on this in another post.)
(2) The non-solicitation covenant was not limited either (a) to a discrete class of customers, or (b) territorially. It also barred Carson from accepting business from a customer. Georgia cases hold that non-solicitation covenants that bar this so-called "passive solicitation" are invalid. (Again, stupid. How can an enforcing party know who contacted whom?)
(3) The non-compete covenant was invalid because it applied throughout the country and had no discernible territory limitation and because it had no activity scope tied to it. That is, it barred any affiliation with a competitor, not just some particular competitive conduct.
Because of the fundamental difference in how Georgia and Florida courts view non-competes, the Court of Appeals found that the operating agreement covenants violated Georgia public policy and that a Florida court would enforce them (at least to some extent). That means that, in Georgia, the choice-of-venue clause was invalid. A Georgia court had to hear the case and had to apply Georgia law. IIt must be nice to be a Georgia non-compete lawyer. No shortage of cases. And plenty of contract rewrites given the change in the law in 2011.
Other states that will pose similar procedural problems like this are Wisconsin, Oklahoma, North Dakota, and California. States that are viewed as more employee-friendly may not have robust public policy considerations that require courts to override choice-of-forum and choice-of-law clauses.
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Court: Court of Appeals of Georgia
Opinion Date: 11/20/12
Cite: Carson v. Obor Holding Co., LLC, 2012 Ga. App. LEXIS 971 (Ga. Ct. App. Nov. 20, 2012)
Favors: Employee
Law: Georgia
Friday, October 5, 2012
Case Law Update: The Remedies and Civil Procedure Edition
This is a much overdue case law update, so it's a little lengthy. But on the upside, it touches on a number of different subjects from around the country.
Lost Profits
A federal district court in Indiana excluded significant parts of an expert's lost profits testimony in the hotly contested case of CDW, LLC v. NETech Corp. The case arose out of an allegation that NETech lifted out CDW's Indianapolis branch office and suffered millions in losses in "advanced technology" revenue. On a Daubert motion, the district court excluded a financial expert's "yardstick" methodology for predicting what CDW's Indianapolis branch would have earned but for the alleged wrongful conduct by the ex-employees. The ruling effectively excluded opinions that would have established lost profits of over $17,000,000. The district court allowed an alternative formulation of lost profits in a much lower amount to go to the jury.
Equitable Extension
The extension of non-competes past their expiration date (as measured from the date of termination of employment) is one of the most controversial, hotly contested remedies in litigation. As a federal district court in Idaho noted a few weeks ago, judges normally impose this remedy - when it's available - after a jury finding of breach or after a favorable ruling on summary judgment for the enforcing party. But in unusual cases, like that in MWI Veterinary Supply Co. v. Wotton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131784 (D. Idaho Sept. 14, 2012), the court can issue an extension remedy at a TRO or preliminary injunction phase. That finding was important in the Wotton case since the court had to find extension was appropriate to determine likelihood of success on the merits of the case. The non-compete, which arose out of the sale of a business, expired by the time the court addressed the preliminary injunction motion.
Temporary Restraining Orders
An Ohio court refused to grant a temporary restraining order against a departed sales executive in Chart Industries, Inc. v. Spagnoletti, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140102 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 28, 2012), because the non-competition covenant contained no geographic or job-scope limitations. Though careful to note that such covenants were not per se unenforceable, the court stated it was important that the employer did not ask the court to impose any sort of limitation on the covenant at the TRO stage that would make it reasonable. The case demonstrates the continued difficulty courts have enforcing non-competes that contain no limiting language whatsoever. Delaware law applied.
Necessary and Indispensable Parties
In non-compete cases, the plaintiff sometimes will elect to forego suing the new employer and will proceed simply against the employee. There are a number of strategic and substantive reasons why this may be the case. The ruling in OneCommand, Inc. v. Beroth, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122587 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 29, 2012), shows that a new employer is not a necessary party who must be part of the litigation under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. Even if the plaintiff has potential claims against a new employer (for interference, trade secrets theft and the like), it is not necessary to make that company a party to a breach of contract suit with the employee.
Jury Trial Waivers
The right to a jury trial can be waived by contract if the waiver is knowing and voluntary. Generally, such waivers are strictly construed, however. One question that frequently arises is how far the contractual waiver extends to non-contract claims, like trade secrets misappropriation. A Delaware court concluded that a jury waiver provision in an asset purchase agreement encompassed related tort claims of trade secrets theft, conversion, and common-law unfair competition - reasoning that the "arising out of" language in the agreement was sufficiently broad to include torts intrinsically related to the contract action. The case is Coface Collections North Am., Inc. v. Newton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124342 (D. Del. Aug. 31, 2012).
Attorneys' Fees
Non-compete litigation can sometimes perpetuate itself solely because of fees that are incurred. An illustration of this problem comes from the case of Cumulus Broadcasting v. Okesson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124836 (D. Conn. Sept. 4, 2012). After the parties settled, they left it to the district judge to award attorneys' fees under a provision of the employment agreement that enabled the plaintiff to recover fees enforcing the non-compete.
The court, seemingly none-too-pleased (particularly since it was not allowed to see the terms of the parties' settlement agreement (?)), significantly pared back what the plaintiff thought it was owed. It essentially limited its fees to those incurred to obtain a preliminary injunction. And even that apparently gave the plaintiff only a small slice of what it wanted. The court ripped about $10,000 in fees off what it cost to take the matter to hearing.
The fee award was $80,317 (inclusive of some $21,000 in costs) - about 1/4 of what the plaintiff incurred and claimed it was entitled to. If nothing else, the case highlights for clients what a preliminary injunction can cost. And it further shows that weak non-compete cases can cost a lot more than the value of the benefit received.
Lost Profits
A federal district court in Indiana excluded significant parts of an expert's lost profits testimony in the hotly contested case of CDW, LLC v. NETech Corp. The case arose out of an allegation that NETech lifted out CDW's Indianapolis branch office and suffered millions in losses in "advanced technology" revenue. On a Daubert motion, the district court excluded a financial expert's "yardstick" methodology for predicting what CDW's Indianapolis branch would have earned but for the alleged wrongful conduct by the ex-employees. The ruling effectively excluded opinions that would have established lost profits of over $17,000,000. The district court allowed an alternative formulation of lost profits in a much lower amount to go to the jury.
Equitable Extension
The extension of non-competes past their expiration date (as measured from the date of termination of employment) is one of the most controversial, hotly contested remedies in litigation. As a federal district court in Idaho noted a few weeks ago, judges normally impose this remedy - when it's available - after a jury finding of breach or after a favorable ruling on summary judgment for the enforcing party. But in unusual cases, like that in MWI Veterinary Supply Co. v. Wotton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 131784 (D. Idaho Sept. 14, 2012), the court can issue an extension remedy at a TRO or preliminary injunction phase. That finding was important in the Wotton case since the court had to find extension was appropriate to determine likelihood of success on the merits of the case. The non-compete, which arose out of the sale of a business, expired by the time the court addressed the preliminary injunction motion.
Temporary Restraining Orders
An Ohio court refused to grant a temporary restraining order against a departed sales executive in Chart Industries, Inc. v. Spagnoletti, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 140102 (N.D. Ohio Sept. 28, 2012), because the non-competition covenant contained no geographic or job-scope limitations. Though careful to note that such covenants were not per se unenforceable, the court stated it was important that the employer did not ask the court to impose any sort of limitation on the covenant at the TRO stage that would make it reasonable. The case demonstrates the continued difficulty courts have enforcing non-competes that contain no limiting language whatsoever. Delaware law applied.
Necessary and Indispensable Parties
In non-compete cases, the plaintiff sometimes will elect to forego suing the new employer and will proceed simply against the employee. There are a number of strategic and substantive reasons why this may be the case. The ruling in OneCommand, Inc. v. Beroth, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 122587 (S.D. Ohio Aug. 29, 2012), shows that a new employer is not a necessary party who must be part of the litigation under Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 19. Even if the plaintiff has potential claims against a new employer (for interference, trade secrets theft and the like), it is not necessary to make that company a party to a breach of contract suit with the employee.
Jury Trial Waivers
The right to a jury trial can be waived by contract if the waiver is knowing and voluntary. Generally, such waivers are strictly construed, however. One question that frequently arises is how far the contractual waiver extends to non-contract claims, like trade secrets misappropriation. A Delaware court concluded that a jury waiver provision in an asset purchase agreement encompassed related tort claims of trade secrets theft, conversion, and common-law unfair competition - reasoning that the "arising out of" language in the agreement was sufficiently broad to include torts intrinsically related to the contract action. The case is Coface Collections North Am., Inc. v. Newton, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124342 (D. Del. Aug. 31, 2012).
Attorneys' Fees
Non-compete litigation can sometimes perpetuate itself solely because of fees that are incurred. An illustration of this problem comes from the case of Cumulus Broadcasting v. Okesson, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 124836 (D. Conn. Sept. 4, 2012). After the parties settled, they left it to the district judge to award attorneys' fees under a provision of the employment agreement that enabled the plaintiff to recover fees enforcing the non-compete.
The court, seemingly none-too-pleased (particularly since it was not allowed to see the terms of the parties' settlement agreement (?)), significantly pared back what the plaintiff thought it was owed. It essentially limited its fees to those incurred to obtain a preliminary injunction. And even that apparently gave the plaintiff only a small slice of what it wanted. The court ripped about $10,000 in fees off what it cost to take the matter to hearing.
The fee award was $80,317 (inclusive of some $21,000 in costs) - about 1/4 of what the plaintiff incurred and claimed it was entitled to. If nothing else, the case highlights for clients what a preliminary injunction can cost. And it further shows that weak non-compete cases can cost a lot more than the value of the benefit received.
Saturday, August 4, 2012
Supreme Court of South Carolina Addresses Validity of Invention Assignment Clause
Cases addressing invention assignment clauses are few and far between. But 2012 has produced two state supreme court decisions in this area of intellectual property law. Earlier this year, Wyoming addressed the matter, and now South Carolina has.
I have discussed this subject infrequently, but assignment clauses often intersect non-compete law. In essence, they provide that any inventions (patentable or not) that an employee develops in association with her employer are the property of the employer. The only real controversial element of these clauses is the holdover or trailer aspect of them - which are found, I'd say, in about half the contracts I've seen. Those holdover clauses bear some passing resemblance to a post-termination non-compete, as they require an employee to assign inventions if they are developed within a period of time - usually 6 months or a year - after termination.
The purpose of holdover clauses is fairly obvious. Assume an employee in product development is working on a rollout of new smart phone technology, whose planned launch is several months away. If she leaves and starts development of a product based on that same technology, an assignment clause without a trailer may not capture this invention. The holdover clause creates a disincentive for an employee to delay or hide work on a technological development, because presumably the employee knows the trailer clause won't allow her to lie in the weeds and exploit it after termination. One can also look at a holdover clause as an extension of an employee's duty of loyalty, in effect providing a remedy in contract for improperly exploiting valuable commercial information after departure.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina in Milliken & Co. v. Morin held that holdover clauses were not restraints of trade subject to the traditional three-part rule of reason. More importantly, they are not strictly construed against the employer. Still, because there is potential for overreaching and for holdover clauses to restrict some competition, courts will assess whether they're reasonable. It's difficult to distinguish between a more lax test of reasonableness (applicable to clauses like an invention assignment holdovers and even non-disclosure covenants) and a three-part rule of reason (applicable to non-competes). In fact, the test that the Court in Morin established sounds almost identical to the non-compete test.
Practically speaking, courts will simply check to see what the economic impact of the holdover clause is on the marketplace. If it looks and acts like a more expansive non-compete, such as a term that is too long (say 5 years) or a clause that is too vague so as to not put someone on notice of its scope, then a court more likely will apply a strict scrutiny test. If the clause looks commercially reasonable and designed to protect an employer's inventions, then a simple reasonableness check almost certainly will uphold the covenant.
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Court: Supreme Court of South Carolina
Opinion Date: 8/1/12
Cite: Milliken & Co v. Morin, No. 27154
Favors: Employer
Law: South Carolina
I have discussed this subject infrequently, but assignment clauses often intersect non-compete law. In essence, they provide that any inventions (patentable or not) that an employee develops in association with her employer are the property of the employer. The only real controversial element of these clauses is the holdover or trailer aspect of them - which are found, I'd say, in about half the contracts I've seen. Those holdover clauses bear some passing resemblance to a post-termination non-compete, as they require an employee to assign inventions if they are developed within a period of time - usually 6 months or a year - after termination.The purpose of holdover clauses is fairly obvious. Assume an employee in product development is working on a rollout of new smart phone technology, whose planned launch is several months away. If she leaves and starts development of a product based on that same technology, an assignment clause without a trailer may not capture this invention. The holdover clause creates a disincentive for an employee to delay or hide work on a technological development, because presumably the employee knows the trailer clause won't allow her to lie in the weeds and exploit it after termination. One can also look at a holdover clause as an extension of an employee's duty of loyalty, in effect providing a remedy in contract for improperly exploiting valuable commercial information after departure.
The Supreme Court of South Carolina in Milliken & Co. v. Morin held that holdover clauses were not restraints of trade subject to the traditional three-part rule of reason. More importantly, they are not strictly construed against the employer. Still, because there is potential for overreaching and for holdover clauses to restrict some competition, courts will assess whether they're reasonable. It's difficult to distinguish between a more lax test of reasonableness (applicable to clauses like an invention assignment holdovers and even non-disclosure covenants) and a three-part rule of reason (applicable to non-competes). In fact, the test that the Court in Morin established sounds almost identical to the non-compete test.
Practically speaking, courts will simply check to see what the economic impact of the holdover clause is on the marketplace. If it looks and acts like a more expansive non-compete, such as a term that is too long (say 5 years) or a clause that is too vague so as to not put someone on notice of its scope, then a court more likely will apply a strict scrutiny test. If the clause looks commercially reasonable and designed to protect an employer's inventions, then a simple reasonableness check almost certainly will uphold the covenant.
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Court: Supreme Court of South Carolina
Opinion Date: 8/1/12
Cite: Milliken & Co v. Morin, No. 27154
Favors: Employer
Law: South Carolina
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Post-Reliable Fire, Illinois Courts Are Really All Over the Place
Less than a year later, courts continue to struggle with Reliable Fire in application. The problem continues to be that each judge views non-competes differently, and that very few generalist judges are in the position of reading the 150 or so Illinois decisions to try and reconcile cases all over the map. Further, there are very few areas of commercial litigation that call upon courts to make policy judgments and to resolve tensions with significant public interests at stake.
But non-compete litigation poses a number of challenges for litigants, attorneys, and judges. For instance, it's widely assumed - rightfully so - that only the most extreme non-competes will be tossed before discovery. This is what Judge Holderman held a week or so ago in Instant Technology, LLC v. DeFazio, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 90911 (N.D. Ill. June 26, 2011). That case involved a three-year non-solicitation covenant in the IT staffing business - one of my top three markets for non-compete litigation (insurance agents and medical device sales run a solid one and two). Citing Reliable Fire, Judge Holderman noted that the three-part reasonableness test requires a court to balance the totality of the circumstances to determine whether a covenant is enforceable.
But the Appellate Court of Illinois looked at the issue differently in Kairies v. All Line, Inc., 2012 IL App (2d) 111027-U, when it affirmed a circuit court's order granting judgment on the pleadings in a non-compete case. That dispute involved a declaratory judgment claim brought by an employee who was bound to a two-year non-solicitation/non-compete covenant. The court found that the non-solicitation covenant was unenforceable on its face because it extended to all of the company's customers - not just those the employee contacted or developed. The non-compete proved an easier analysis, because it was an outright prohibition on competition anywhere (though, for some reason, the court never notes the absence of a geographic term).
The really screwy part of this is that the Kairies court held Reliable Fire was of limited impact, since the "principles governing the determination" of the non-solicitation covenant's reasonableness were "well settled and predate Reliable Fire." Essentially, Kairies seems to suggest Reliable Fire only deals with determining the existence of a legitimate business interest, and that prior cases concerning reasonableness were undisturbed.
But this can't be right. If Reliable Fire requires consideration of the totality of the circumstances, and indeed says that the "identical contract and restraint may be reasonable and valid under one set of circumstances...and invalid under another set" then a court must look at the protectable interest and the covenant's language together, with the unique facts of each case.
As an example, a customer non-solicitation covenant may not have the necessary tie in to the employee, which the agreement in Kairies did not. But what if the facts show that the company was small and that all employees had access to, or worked on, all customers' accounts? Or what if the employee was a manager, such that he had indirect contact with (but extensive knowledge of) a wide range of customers?
This is not to say that some agreements are so patently overbroad that a pre-discovery motion is never a useful tool to dispose of a case. But there is no way that the Supreme Court intended for Reliable Fire to be interpreted so narrowly.
It's hard to say whether Kairies will be revisited on a motion to reconsider. It has a shaky foundation. At this point, it's non-precedential (why, I don't know...) under Rule 23. For lawyers, the case is a continuing reminder that they must be careful advising clients on enforceability. Courts just continue to miss significant legal issues.
A final word. I am not defending the contract provisions in Kairies. They weren't the greatest, and perhaps the employer deserved its fate. The policy rationale, and the potential impact, for future cases, though, is of real concern.
Thursday, January 19, 2012
Recent Decisions of Interest (No. 1)
My regular Thursday column will survey recent decisions across the United States which touch upon non-compete or trade secret issues. The four cases I chose this week touch on a wide variety of issues, including those relevant to the corporate counsel drafting non-compete clauses.
AMG Nat'l Trust Bank v. Ries, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149130 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 29, 2011). The court, applying Colorado law, found that a liquidated damages provision in a two-year non-compete, which called for payment of ten times the annual gross fees for each wrongfully solicited client, was voidable as a matter of law. I drafted two liquidated damages clauses this week for clients, and my advice is always the same: be able to justify the methodology you select under oath. The more random and arbitrary a clause looks, the more likely a court simply will strike it.
ISCO Indus., LLLC v. Erdle, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148907 (E.D.N.C. Dec. 28, 2011). A North Carolina court denied entry of a preliminary injunction motion against a sales employee in the piping distribution business. The employee's covenant was not narrowly tailored to restrict him from selling only products or services competitive with those offered by the ex-employer. This further illustrates why attorneys must be careful in considering the scope of the non-compete restriction. Using hypothetical scenarios during the drafting process can help identify problems of overbreadth.
WIT Walchi Innovation Techs., GmbH v. Westrick, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1847 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 6, 2012). A court issued an ex parte temporary restraining order against an employee who allegedly stole a laptop containing proprietary source code and programming for a software product. The court issued a broad evidence preservation order and ordered immediate return of the stolen laptop computer. No commentary necessary here. Firsthand evidence of outright theft of property warrants mandatory injunctive relief, even on an ex parte basis.
Pellerin v. Honeywell Int'l Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3781 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 12, 2012). A district court in California sustained a defense objection to the retention of a trade secrets expert on the basis that the expert was a former employee of the defendant. Such objections, usually made under the terms of protective order, are common when the expert may have had prior access to an adversary's confidential information. It may be impossible in such circumstances for the expert to provide legitimate, untainted opinion testimony.
AMG Nat'l Trust Bank v. Ries, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 149130 (E.D. Pa. Dec. 29, 2011). The court, applying Colorado law, found that a liquidated damages provision in a two-year non-compete, which called for payment of ten times the annual gross fees for each wrongfully solicited client, was voidable as a matter of law. I drafted two liquidated damages clauses this week for clients, and my advice is always the same: be able to justify the methodology you select under oath. The more random and arbitrary a clause looks, the more likely a court simply will strike it.
ISCO Indus., LLLC v. Erdle, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148907 (E.D.N.C. Dec. 28, 2011). A North Carolina court denied entry of a preliminary injunction motion against a sales employee in the piping distribution business. The employee's covenant was not narrowly tailored to restrict him from selling only products or services competitive with those offered by the ex-employer. This further illustrates why attorneys must be careful in considering the scope of the non-compete restriction. Using hypothetical scenarios during the drafting process can help identify problems of overbreadth.
WIT Walchi Innovation Techs., GmbH v. Westrick, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 1847 (S.D. Fla. Jan. 6, 2012). A court issued an ex parte temporary restraining order against an employee who allegedly stole a laptop containing proprietary source code and programming for a software product. The court issued a broad evidence preservation order and ordered immediate return of the stolen laptop computer. No commentary necessary here. Firsthand evidence of outright theft of property warrants mandatory injunctive relief, even on an ex parte basis.
Pellerin v. Honeywell Int'l Inc., 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 3781 (S.D. Cal. Jan. 12, 2012). A district court in California sustained a defense objection to the retention of a trade secrets expert on the basis that the expert was a former employee of the defendant. Such objections, usually made under the terms of protective order, are common when the expert may have had prior access to an adversary's confidential information. It may be impossible in such circumstances for the expert to provide legitimate, untainted opinion testimony.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Supreme Court of Texas Revamps Non-Compete Test...Again (Marsh USA v. Cook)
The Supreme Court of Texas continued a trend we've seen in 2011 - substantial change by states to substantive non-compete law. Earlier this year, Georgia reformed its state law by enacting a new statute designed to allow for easier enforcement of non-compete contracts, particularly in the employment context.
Recently, Colorado has made it easier for employers to enforce non-compete agreements against at-will employees. And Illinois will have its Supreme Court decide, finally, the appropriate test for determining the enforceability of a non-compete agreement in the employment context.
While state supreme court opinions on non-compete issues are few and far between each year, that's not the case in Texas. Over the past several years, the Supreme Court of Texas has made several significant rulings and has chipped away at a 1994 decision that was perceived, correctly so, as creating a difficult enforcement landscape.
The latest ruling in Marsh USA v. Cook returns Texas back to the fold in determining the enforceability of a covenant under the "reasonableness" standard. Prior to this time, courts struggled over a technical, confusing inquiry concerning "ancillarity." Put simply, the Supreme Court of Texas had grafted onto its statute the requirement that promises made by an employer to an employee must "give rise" to a legitimate interest in restraining competition. Essentially, this meant that the employer had to promise to provide an employee with confidential business information. Otherwise, no promise made by the employer bore any rational nexus to enforcing the non-compete.
The Cook decision eliminates this judicially created rule and interprets Texas' Covenants Not to Compete Act according to the letter. As long as there is another agreement supporting the non-compete, trial courts must proceed to a reasonableness analysis. In Cook, the other agreement was providing stock options to a key employee - not providing him confidential information. The lower courts had held that this was not the type of consideration (money) that "gives rise to" an interest in preventing competition. Basically, the lower courts said an employer could not buy a non-compete. The Supreme Court of Texas found that an employer's interest in building goodwill and incenting employees' performance was a legitimate interest worthy of protection.
The interesting part of this ruling is Justice Willett's concurring opinion, which basically makes one important point as it relates to the Court's holding: it is not enough to mouth goodwill. An employer has to demonstrate it through a clear record. The Court makes the valid point that any type of employment incentive - a raise, a bonus, a promotion, or "a better parking space" - can motivate an employee to strengthen client relationships and contribute towards goodwill.
The concurring opinion also contains a very scholarly and interesting discussion of non-compete law in the knowledge-based economy. It reads like a summary of law review articles and provides many compelling arguments for strong judicial oversight of employment contracts in the 21st century. There are some great quotes in this opinion for lawyers to use.
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Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Opinion Date: 6/24/11
Cite: Marsh USA Inc v. Cook, 2011 Tex. LEXIS 465 (Tex. June 24, 2011)
Favors: Employer
Law: Texas
Recently, Colorado has made it easier for employers to enforce non-compete agreements against at-will employees. And Illinois will have its Supreme Court decide, finally, the appropriate test for determining the enforceability of a non-compete agreement in the employment context.
While state supreme court opinions on non-compete issues are few and far between each year, that's not the case in Texas. Over the past several years, the Supreme Court of Texas has made several significant rulings and has chipped away at a 1994 decision that was perceived, correctly so, as creating a difficult enforcement landscape.
The latest ruling in Marsh USA v. Cook returns Texas back to the fold in determining the enforceability of a covenant under the "reasonableness" standard. Prior to this time, courts struggled over a technical, confusing inquiry concerning "ancillarity." Put simply, the Supreme Court of Texas had grafted onto its statute the requirement that promises made by an employer to an employee must "give rise" to a legitimate interest in restraining competition. Essentially, this meant that the employer had to promise to provide an employee with confidential business information. Otherwise, no promise made by the employer bore any rational nexus to enforcing the non-compete.
The Cook decision eliminates this judicially created rule and interprets Texas' Covenants Not to Compete Act according to the letter. As long as there is another agreement supporting the non-compete, trial courts must proceed to a reasonableness analysis. In Cook, the other agreement was providing stock options to a key employee - not providing him confidential information. The lower courts had held that this was not the type of consideration (money) that "gives rise to" an interest in preventing competition. Basically, the lower courts said an employer could not buy a non-compete. The Supreme Court of Texas found that an employer's interest in building goodwill and incenting employees' performance was a legitimate interest worthy of protection.
The interesting part of this ruling is Justice Willett's concurring opinion, which basically makes one important point as it relates to the Court's holding: it is not enough to mouth goodwill. An employer has to demonstrate it through a clear record. The Court makes the valid point that any type of employment incentive - a raise, a bonus, a promotion, or "a better parking space" - can motivate an employee to strengthen client relationships and contribute towards goodwill.
The concurring opinion also contains a very scholarly and interesting discussion of non-compete law in the knowledge-based economy. It reads like a summary of law review articles and provides many compelling arguments for strong judicial oversight of employment contracts in the 21st century. There are some great quotes in this opinion for lawyers to use.
--
Court: Supreme Court of Texas
Opinion Date: 6/24/11
Cite: Marsh USA Inc v. Cook, 2011 Tex. LEXIS 465 (Tex. June 24, 2011)
Favors: Employer
Law: Texas
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Supreme Court of Illinois Grants Leave to Appeal in Reliable Fire Equipment
Today the Supreme Court of Illinois granted an employer's leave to appeal in Reliable Fire Equipment v. Arredondo, the Second District case last year which added new confusion to non-compete law in Illinois.
Following Reliable Fire Equipment, the five appellate courts in Illinois were left to apply three different "protectable interest" tests. The Court had little choice but to resolve this conflict among the appellate districts.
The case represents the Court's first true opportunity to enunciate a standard by which employment-based non-compete agreements will be judged. I believe the Court will adopt some variant of the traditional test widely used across many jurisdictions, which allows enforcement of non-compete agreements if: (a) the covenant is reasonable and not greater than is required for the protection of the employer; (b) the covenant does not impose an undue hardship on the employee; and (c) the covenant is not injurious to the public interest.
Element (a) is almost always an issue in litigation and encompasses traditional hot-button issues like a covenant that is too long, too extensive in geographic reach, or too broad in scope. It also would require a court to analyze the breadth of the covenant in relation to the interest an employer seeks to protect.
Also, it is element (a) where Illinois courts have gotten lost on a detour for the last, oh, 70 years or so. The Court is unlikely to issue an opinion in Reliable Fire Equipment until early 2012.
Friday, April 22, 2011
Be Careful When Drafting Geographic Restriction in Louisiana (In re Gulf Fleet Holdings, Inc.)
Louisiana is one of those special drafting states. Attorneys must proceed with great care when drafting the scope of a non-compete restriction by virtue of a strictly applied statute. Section 23:921(C) of the Louisiana Statutes provides that for a non-compete to be enforceable specific parishes or municipalities must be identified. Even if an employer conducts business throughout the state, a blanket prohibition on competing in Louisiana will be invalid.
It is settled law in Louisiana that an employer cannot enforce a non-compete in a parish where it does not conduct business. For employers that want to restrict post-employment activities, therefore, it is essential to be consistent and include in the non-compete agreement only those parishes where it can show demonstrable business activity.
If an employer chooses to be overinclusive and list, for instance, all parishes in Louisiana, this would not necessarily be fatal or render the covenant overbroad. Several courts, including a recent adversary proceeding in bankruptcy, have allowed an employer to engage in this practice and have blue-penciled the listed parishes where the employer does not engage in business.
Another twist, however: the operative agreement must contain a clause allowing for such severing of the covenant. Finally, if the covenant applies outside Louisiana, the restrictions must also list out the prohibited territories by county. So for instance, if an employer chooses to restrict business in neighboring Texas, it too must list each Texas county it considers off-limits.
Louisiana courts place a strange emphasis on over-technical drafting. It can certainly be argued that the practice of blue-penciling specific parishes or counties creates an incentive for an employer to be overinclusive and overbroad, knowing full well courts can strike specific locations without rendering the entire agreement unenforceable.
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Court: United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Louisiana
Cite: In re Gulf Fleet Holdings, Inc., 2011 Bankr. LEXIS 1396 (W.D. La. Mar. 31, 2011)
Opinion Date: 3/31/11
Favors: Employer
Law: Louisiana
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