Noncompete Agreements

Repeat After Me: Competitors Cannot Agree Not to Hire Each Others Employees

November 29, 2012

Employee non-compete agreements are unenforceable under California statutory law, but that hasn’t stopped many California tech companies from finding a back-room work-around. In October 2010 I wrote a short post discussing the FTC’s complaint that a number of California companies had illegally agreed not to solicit each others employees – so-called “no-poach” agreements.  (Apple, Google, Have You No Shame? Really!). Now, two years later, the DOJ has filed a suit against eBay which, the suit claims, entered into a no recruit/no hire agreement with Intuit. Intuit is one of the companies caught engaging in this practice in 2010, and is subject to an agreement not to do so. To make matters even worse, according to the DOJ press release the agreement was entered into at the highest levels of both companies – Meg Whitman (then eBay’s CEO) and Scott Cook (CEO of Intuit). These companies have huge in-house legal departments (not to mention Big Law outside counsel).  But, the fact that the Justice Department views these types of agreements as per se illegal seems to have escaped them. Or, perhaps the benefit of these agreements (if a company is caught) is worth the cost.  

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Posting Your New Job Info on Facebook Is Not “Soliciting” Former Employer’s Customers

November 20, 2012

It’s not often that a Massachusetts Superior Court decision gets national attention, but if you search for Invidia, LLC, v. DiFonzo (Mass. Super. Ct. Oct. 22, 2012) you’ll see that legal blogs around the country have picked-up on this obscure case. Why? Because anything that involves the intersection of law and social media gets attention. In this case, the issue that attracted attention was whether a hairdresser employed by a beauty salon in Sudbury, Mass. “solicited” her former employer’s customers in violation of a noncompete/non-solicitation agreement. What did Ms. DiFonzo do to trigger this claim? She posted news of her job change on her Facebook page. The court held neither posting news of her new salon, nor friending several customers, constituted solicitation. Professor Eric Goldman has a lot to say about this case, including his question of how widespread litigation in the hair salon industry improves social welfare. And, he quite rightly gloats over the fact that an agreement like Ms. DiFonzo’s would not be enforceable in California, which has prohibited employee non-competes by statute. Not noted by most commentators outside of Massachusetts is the judge’s tentative conclusion that the customer “good will” this hair dresser developed with her customers may belong to her, not her salon. Most of Ms. DiFonzo’s customers seem to have been developed by her while working at the old salon, which makes this holding somewhat unusual. Goodwill…

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Massachusetts Quick Links – October 2012

November 5, 2012

Oriental Financial Group, Inc. v.  Cooperativa De Ahorro y Crédito Oriental (1st Cir. October 18, 2012) — In this case the First Circuit adopts the trademark law “progressive encroachment doctrine,” joining the 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th and 11th circuits. The progressive encroachment doctrine may be used as an offensive countermeasure to the affirmative defense of laches (delay in brining suit) where the trademark owner can show that “(1) during the period of the delay the plaintiff could reasonably conclude that it should not bring suit to challenge the allegedly infringing activity; (2) the defendant materially altered its infringing activities; and (3) suit was not unreasonably delayed after the alteration in infringing activity” (quoting Oriental Financial). Harlan Laboratories, Inc. v. Gerald Campbell (D. Mass. October 25, 2012) — Applying Indiana law, Judge Patti Saris issues a preliminary injunction enforcing a one year non-compete agreement. However, the opinion makes liberal use of Massachusetts and First Circuit precedents. Blake v. Professional Coin Grading Service (D. Mass. October 6, 2012) — In this case, which involves alleged trade secrets associated with a method to grade the “eye appeal” of coins, Judge William Young concluded that the “method” was not subject to trade secret protection due to the fact it had been publicly disseminated before being disclosed to the defendants. However, Judge Young ruled that the case could proceed based on the alleged misappropriation of a proposed marketing plan.  In addition to…

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Noncompete Unenforceable Where Employer Changed Terms of Employment

September 2, 2012

A recent Massachusetts Superior Court decision holds, on summary judgment, that a company may not enforce a noncompete/non-solicitation agreement against a former employee when the former employer had materially breached the agreement by changing the terms of  employment. Specifically, the employer changed the employee’s job responsibilities and title, and cut his annual salary by $40,000. There’s nothing particularly surprising about this ruling, which is a reminder to employers that they can sacrifice the enforceability of a noncompete by materially changing the terms of an employment agreement. This can be avoided by entering into a new agreement containing the modified terms, something the employer in this case failed to do. Protege Software v. Colameta (Sup. Ct. Middlesex, July 16, 2012) ( Kirpalani, J.)

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Inevitable Disclosure Doctrine Fails Again in Massachusetts

July 10, 2012

Can an employer prevent a former employee from working for a competitor in the absence of a non-compete agreement and with no evidence the employee has violated the former employer’s trade secret or confidentiality rights?  You would think not, but a couple of cases — infamous in the annals of non-compete law  – have imposed a non-compete in these circumstances.  The case cited most frequently on this issue is PepsiCo v. Redmond, a 1995 case in which the 7th Circuit affirmed a preliminary injunction ordering the former employee of PepsiCo to cease working for a competitor for six months, despite the fact that the employee did not have a non-compete agreement.  Another high profile case prohibiting an employee from working for a competitor, even in the absence of a non-compete agreement, is Bimbo Bakeries USA, Inc. v. Botticella, decided by the 3rd Circuit in 2010. In these cases the employee does have non-disclosure/trade secret agreements.  The employer’s argument, based on these, is that the employee will  ”inevitably” disclose the former employer’s trade secrets or confidential information in the course of working for a competitor. However, cases where the courts have accepted this theory without evidence of actual misappropriation are almost as rare as hens teeth, and Massachusetts U.S. District Court Judge Denise Casper recognized this when she denied the former employer a preliminary injunction in U.S. Electrical Services v. Schmidt in June of this…

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You Want to Enforce a Non-Compete? Bad Facts, Sir, Give Me Some Bad Facts!

June 22, 2012

What is the first thing a lawyer looks for when a client wants to enforce a non-compete agreement?  What is the first thing a lawyer hopes not to find when a client is the subject of a non-competition demand letter or lawsuit? Bad facts. Did the employee take confidential information belonging to the former employer?  Did the employee contact customers of the former employer and solicit them for the prospective employer before leaving the former employer?  If the employee was an executive or owed a fiduciary duty to the former employer, did the employee solicit other employees to leave with her? If the employee did any of these things, did the employee try to cover it up?  Bad facts!  The plaintiff’s lawyer will say.  Give me those bad facts! OK, I exaggerate a bit – of course a lawyer first wants to see if there is a written agreement that contains a non-compete provision.  But believe me, any experienced lawyer is itching to find those bad facts.  Lawyers know that judges are ambivalent about non-compete agreements, and putting someone out of work by issuing an preliminary injunction to enforce a non-compete provision is something few judges do with an easy conscience.  It’s no secret that there are some judges who will bend over backwards to find a way not to enforce a non-compete. So, lawyers trying to enforce these agreements know that the one…

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Mass. Appeals Court Reverses an Unusual Trial Order in Non-Compete Case: Trillium v. Cheung

April 4, 2012

Here is an unusual spin on Massachusetts non-compete law.  As best I can understand the facts (which require a bit of “between the lines” reading) Trillium sued Cheung, a former employee of Trillium.  Cheung had, it appears, released an employee from a non-compete agreement without company approval. Trillium’s suit asserted breach of fiduciary duty to the company. A trial ensued, but at the outset the judge observed that if the underlying non-compete agreement had not been enforceable the release had caused no harm to Trillium, and hence there had been no legal wrong committed by Cheung.  In other words, the trial involved a concept that lawyers dislike greatly: a “trial within a trial.”  (Think Russian nesting dolls). Here, the two trials involved the question of whether the non-compete was enforceable and, if so, whether Cheung acted illegally by releasing the employee from the agreement. The trial began with a jury proceeding, during which the jury was asked to decide the second of these issues first  - whether Cheung had improperly given the employee a release from  the non-compete.  However, in an odd twist the parties agreed that the judge, not the jury, would rule on damages.  Before doing so, however, the judge addressed the second issue (which, one would think, should have gone first),  held that the non-compete agreement was unenforceable, and concluded therefore that Trillium had suffered no damages….

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Two Recent Noncompete Cases From the Superior Court

March 23, 2012

Noncompete opinions from the Massachusetts Superior Court are few and far between, so the two decisions that have been issued so far this year — one from Judge Peter Lauriat sitting in the Suffolk Business Litigation Section (BLS), the other from Judge Thomas R. Murtagh in Middlesex Cournty — are worth noting.  Both judges are respected judicial veterans, and each decision illustrates a legal principle basic to this controversial and often confusing area of law. The more note-worthy of the two cases is Judge Lauriat’s decision in Grace Hunt IT Soutions v. SIS Software, LLC.   There are relatively few ways to wriggle out of a non-compete, but one that should be near the top of every lawyer’s list is the question whether there has been a “material change” in the employment relationship since the non-compete agreement was signed.  If so, a “pre-change” non-compete may be unenforceable.  In this case the court found that there had been such a change, and therefore it denied a motion for preliminary injunction to enforce the  non-compete  covenant against the defendants.  Of course, what constitutes a “material change” can vary, depending upon the eye of the beholder, which in a preliminary injunction context is the judge.  In this case Judge Lauriat concluded that a 20% cut in salary was enough of a change to satisfy this standard.  Also, the employees had signed the non-compete with…

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Cases Cited in My 2011 MCLE Noncompete Chapter Update

November 7, 2011

Earlier this year Massachusetts Continuing Legal Education  (MCLE)  asked me to update my 2009 chapter on Employee Noncompetition Agreements.   The revised chapter, part of the 2-volume Massachusetts Employment Law series, was published in June. Below are links to the cases I added to this chapter.   I’ve also included a sentence or two regarding each case.  However, I did not make an effort to describe every legally significant aspects of each case. Ethicon Endo-Surgery, Inc. v. Pemberton, 27 Mass. L. Rptr. 541 (Super. Ct. 2010).  This case, decided by Judge Peter Lauriat  in the Suffolk Business Litigation Session, applies New Jersey non-compete law, but Massachusetts procedural law for purposes of ruling on a preliminary injunction.  The former employee filed suit in California first, but Judge Lauriat  refused to dismiss this case based on the “first filed” rule.  The court enforced an 18 month covenant not to compete against the former employee. Inner-Tite Corp. v. Brozowski, No. 2010-0156 (Worcester Super. Ct. 2010).  This lenghy decision was written by Judge Janet Kenton-Walker, sitting in Worcester County, following a bench trial.   The judge enforced a one year convenant not to compete against an employee who had worked for Inner-Tite in Georgia.  Given Brozowski’s  relatively low salary, and the fact that he was asked to sign the non-compete after beginning work for Inner-Tite, this contract would not have been enforceable under the various proposed…

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Apple, Google, Have You No Shame? Really!

October 1, 2010

While the debate over whether Massachusetts should adopt a law restricting the enforceability of non-compete agreements rages on (well, at least among a group of maybe 100 economists, lawyers and business people), California proudly observes that noncompete agreements are unenforceable in that state (except under very limited circumstances).   And, economists argue, that is one reason why the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley is more successful than its counterpart Massachusetts. Now, come to learn, things were not quite what they seemed.  I’m sure that 99% of California companies are in fact impacted by the California law — that is, they cannot impose covenants not to compete on their employees.  But a few companies — Google, Apple, Pixar, Adobe, Intuit and Intel — figured out an end-run around this law.  Apparently, the Federal Trade Commission tumbled to the fact that each of these companies agreed, with one or more of the others, not to solicit that company’s employees. For example, according to the FTC Apple and Google put each others employees on “Do Not Call” lists.

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What Happens When California and Massachusetts Law on the Enforceability of Non-Compete Agreements Clash in Massachusetts Superior Court? Read on ….

May 5, 2009

David Donatelli was an EMC Executive VP. He left EMC, and went to work for Hewlett Packard in California. EMC filed suit to enforce Donatelli’s one year non-compete agreement. Donatelli argued that the Massachusetts court should defer enforcement to California law, which is hostile to non-compete agreements. Judge Stephen Neel, in Suffolk Superior Court in Boston, didn’t buy it. He held that California’s legislative policy against non-compete agreements does not trump Massachusetts common law, at least under the facts of this case. Once he got past this major bump in the road, Judge Neel held that continued employment sufficed as consideration for a non-compete agreement (he also noted that the agreement recited that it had been signed “under seal,” magic words that favor enforceability in Massachusetts), held that the agreement was not overbroad, and issued the injunction. Justice Neel did, however, hold a branch above the waters before Mr. Donatelli sank beneath the waves – he stated that Donatelli could move to modify the order if he could show that his job duties at at HP would not “overlap with products or services being developed, produced, marketed or sold by EMC.” However, since the entire purpose of Donatelli’s hire by HP (according to press at the time) was to head HP’s Enterprise Storage and Server Division, which would be competitive with EMC, it’s hard to see how Donatelli could both…

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An Oral Agreement is Only as Good as the Paper It's Written On

February 2, 2009

You’ve got to wonder what Steelcraft was thinking when it decided to file a lawsuit against its former employee, James Hensel. It’s hard enough to enforce a written noncompete agreement, much less an oral agreement, but that’s what Steelcraft tried to do in this case. The absence of a written agreement didn’t deter Steelcraft, which sought a preliminary injunction against Hensel. Steelcraft was able to allege nothing more than an “oral” noncompete agreement. One of several requirements for enforceability of a noncompete agreement is that it be reasonable in duration and geographic scope, and even though Steelcraft alleged an oral agreement, it said nothing about that element, rendering the agreement unenforceable in the eyes of Worcester County Superior Court Judge Richard T. Tucker. Steelcraft also alleged that Hensel had taken Steelcraft trade secrets (the decision doesn’t discuss precisely what these were), but once again its argument was rejected on the grounds that it had failed to establish that it had properly protected the alleged secrets.  For good measure, the judge noted that Steelcraft had failed to enter into a confidentiality agreement with the former employee. There’s a bit more to this case (favorable to Hensel, harmful to Steelcraft), but the point is made: if you fail even to get a written noncompete agreement from your employee, don’t expect that you’ll be able to stop him from competing based on an…

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