In MetroHealth Sys. v. Khandelwal, 2022-Ohio-77, Ohio’s Eighth District Court of Appeals affirmed a trial court’s modification of a noncompete agreement between a hospital and a physician formerly employed by the hospital. Both courts reasoned that modifying the agreement, rather than striking it, protected the hospital’s interest.
The disputed noncompete agreement provided that the
In many non-compete cases, the employer seeks a temporary injunction at the outset of the case to prevent further harm. If the employer loses that motion, the case usually settles or proceeds to discovery as in a standard civil action. However, there can be another option—immediate appeal. A recent Florida appellate decision demonstrates why this
Just as the United States Supreme Court recently limited the reach of the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (“CFAA”) in Van Buren v. United States, the Georgia Supreme Court has now reined in the Georgia state law counterpart to the CFAA.
Background
In Kinslow v. State, No. S20G1001 (June 21, 2021), the
Just as the distinction between an individual’s status as independent contractor versus employee can have serious ramifications for wage, tax, and other legal issues, the same can be true for claims relating to unfair competition. As a recent decision from the Court of Appeals of Ohio highlights, employers must be especially diligent protecting against unfair
When one thinks of a “reasonable” temporal scope for a restrictive covenant between employer and employee, usually that period is measured in months or years, not decades. But as a recent North Carolina decision reminds us, context is everything, and a 10-year restriction can be enforceable in the right circumstances.
Texas courts are increasingly encountering efforts to challenge restrictive covenant agreements on free speech grounds, where the restricted activity includes business-related communications. A recent Texas appellate court decision indicates that this strategy has its limits.
In Hieber v. Percheron Holdings, LLC, No. 14-19-00505-CV (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Nov. 14, 2019), Percheron Holdings, LLC (“Percheron”)
Over the past few years, legislators and government agencies at both the state and federal levels have pushed reforms limiting the use of non-competes and other restrictive covenants by U.S. businesses. Some of those efforts have extended to covenants that restrict a party’s ability to solicit and/or hire employees who are not party to the
On August 26, 2019, the Delaware Chancery Court invalidated a California employee’s customer and employee non-solicitation covenant on the grounds that it violated California law. In doing so, the Court rejected the plaintiff company’s attempt to override California law by including a Delaware choice of law provision in the underlying agreement.
Background
We initially reported
A decision from the Northern District of Illinois is the latest to reiterate a stern warning we have long highlighted for employers: when insufficient steps are taken by an employer to protect its own proprietary information, courts will not provide trade secret protection when such information is misappropriated.
When implementing restrictive covenant agreements in their workforces, companies often grapple with how best to handle the wide variation in the law from one state to the other. One solution is to include a choice of law provision that calls for all agreements to be construed under the laws of a single state. Still, there