Trade Secrets & Employee Mobility

On April 27, 2020, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court’s decision to grant a preliminary injunction preventing a real estate agent from working for a competitor, because her non-compete, attached to a grant of restrictive stock units, was likely enforceable despite the agent’s forfeiture of the company stock.

The employee in this case worked for Martha Turner Sotheby’s International Realty (“Martha Turner”) in Houston, Texas for over four years. Approximately nine months before her resignation, Martha Turner’s parent company ...

When Massachusetts enacted the Massachusetts Noncompetition Agreement Act (“MNCA”) in mid-2018, some commentators suggested that the statute reflected an anti-employer tilt in public policy. But, we advised  that sophisticated employers advised by knowledgeable counsel could navigate the restrictions set forth in the MNCA.  As reported here, the May 2019 decision from the District of Massachusetts in Nuvasive Inc. v. Day and Richard, 19-cv-10800 (D. Mass. May 29, 2019) (Nuvasive I) supported our initial reading of the MNCA.   The First Circuit’s April 8, 2020 decision in ...

Employee restrictive covenant agreements often contain fee-shifting provisions entitling the employer to recover its attorneys’ fees if it “prevails” against the employee. But “prevailing” is a term of art in this context. Obtaining a TRO or preliminary injunction is not a final decision on the merits, so does obtaining a TRO or preliminary injunction trigger a fee-shifting provision? A recent case illustrates that an employer can sidestep this potentially thorny issue by using careful and thoughtful drafting.

In Kelly Services, Inc. v. De Steno, 2019 U.S. App. LEXIS ...