Many employers have granted their white collar workers increased flexibility to work remotely in response to the pandemic. As a result, some employees have moved away from the areas surrounding their offices and into places with lower costs or higher quality of living. In cases where an employee with a non-compete moves to a state such as California, which has a prohibition against any “contract by which anyone is restrained from engaging in a lawful profession, trade, or business of any kind,” that can present potential problems for a Company. Cal. Bus. & Prof. Code. § 16600.
It is rare that a trade secret / restrictive covenant lawsuit makes it all the way to trial, much less a jury verdict. The passage of time, accumulating legal expenses, bad facts, and/or the risk of losing at trial all can conspire to sap litigants of the desire to take their cases to the finish line. Settlements and withdrawals of claims abound. Sometimes, however, the parties dig in and roll the dice in court, as recently occurred in a case in the Southern District of New York.
On November 29, 2016, after more than 10 days of trial, a jury delivered a verdict in favor of the plaintiff Tesla ...
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Recent Updates
- Spilling Secrets Podcast: FTC Nixes Non-Competes Nationwide—Now What?
- Q&A on the FTC's Final Rule Banning Post-Employment Non-Competes
- Chamber of Commerce and Others Swiftly File Lawsuits Seeking to Enjoin and Vacate the FTC’s Noncompete Rule
- The FTC Finally Pulls the Trigger on a Final Noncompete Rule, with a Few Changes, but Remains Unlikely to Ever Hit Its Target
- Spilling Secrets Podcast: Navigating Physician Non-Compete Litigation