Here’s a smattering of cases/disputes that are out there:
Non-compete cases that are well lawyered should be resolved early in the litigation process. Why do I say that? If the plaintiff is an aggressive former employer it will in most instances move for a temporary restraining order followed by an application for a temporary injunction in Texas state court. In that process a lot of things can happen. First, the parties will have appeared before a judge and gotten a flavor for how the judge will rule and what the judge thinks of each parties’ claims and defenses. Second, there may be expedited discovery including document productions and depositions. The judge may even order the case to mediation to avoid having to spend court time on a temporary injunction hearing – which is like a mini-trial.
One option we’ve never spent much time discussing here as it relates to non-competes is the buyout option – on both sides. Buying out a non-compete is neither new nor novel. Physician non-competes in Texas require that the non-compete provision include a buyout option. The statute provides:
the covenant must provide for a buy
I don’t think I’ve ever dedicated a post to a newspaper article but a recent New York Times article entitled “How Noncompete Clauses Keep Workers Locked In” does a great job addressing the human toll of non-competes. Here is a link to the article. The article is generally anti-non-compete when it comes to lower
A couple of weeks ago we wrote about the rationale behind why Texas lawyers aren’t subject to non-compete agreements. That said, generally lawyers aren’t permitted to compete with their current law firm/employer while still employed. That seems pretty basic. Imagine this fact pattern pulled from the allegations from the above lawsuit:
Quite often I have lawyer friends ask me why Texas lawyers (and lawyers from other states) aren’t the subject of non-competes? There aren’t really any cases that I’ve run across on the subject, which sometimes is an indicator that law firms aren’t trying to enforce them. The answer is not that complicated. Queue Texas
A Texas non-compete must satisfy two main components to be enforceable. The non-compete has to be ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement and be reasonable in time and scope. Before the Texas Supreme Court this week was a case where the court was asked to consider a non-compete without a geographical restriction and consider whether
The details are slim from a recent article from the New York Post about a $3 million dollar non-compete/breach of contract case against a New York City hair stylist. What we know:
I went to school in Utah and manage to ski up there every so often. That’s a picture of my son and I in December. Recently I ran accross an article breaking down changes to Utah’s and Idaho’s non-compete laws. The Utah statute really grabbed my attention. The highlights: (1) non-competes can only last
Imagine you are int he courtroom with your lawyer in a trade secret lawsuit. Your company is accused of stealing trade secrets from a competitor. Then imagine the Judge tells you you have to leave the courtroom because the other side does not want yout to hear what its trade secrets are. This issue (though