The Wyoming Supreme Court recently made an important change to the way restrictive covenant agreements are evaluated by courts in that state. For many years, courts in Wyoming – as in many other states – have followed the so-called “blue pencil” rule when presented with a non-competition or non-solicitation agreement whose restrictions appear to be unreasonable.
Continue Reading Non-Competes: No More Blue Penciling in Wyoming
Colorado statutory law has traditionally limited enforcement of restrictive covenants. C.R.S. § 8-2-113, entitled “Unlawful to intimidate worker – agreement not to compete,” provides that all contractual restrictions on a person’s post-employment competitive activity are “void” unless they fit into one of four categories: (1) contracts for the purchase and sale of a business or the assets of a business; (2) contracts for the protection of trade secrets; (3) contracts providing for recovery of expenses of educating and training an employee who have served an employer less than two years; and (4) agreements with executives, management personnel, and their professional staff. This statute applies not only to non-compete agreements, but also to agreements not to solicit customers or employees. Most companies trying to defend their restrictive covenants do so under the exception to protect trade secrets or the exception for executives/managers/professional staff.
Continue Reading Small Change in Colorado Law Could Have Large Effect: Criminalizing Restrictive Covenants
The Court of Appeals for the Sixth Appellate District of Texas at Texarkana issued an opinion on November 24, 2020 in Titan Oil & Gas Consultants LLC v. David W. Willis and RIGUP, Inc., a case addressing application of a non-competition provision in the independent contractor context in the oil and gas drilling and production industry in the Permian Basin and elsewhere. Titan addressed non-competition claims of interest both to those focused on the Texas arcana of the state’s restrictive covenant statute and jurisprudence and to those more generally interested in applying restrictive covenants to independent contractors. Each area
Continue Reading Non-Compete Boilerplate Loses Steam Where Independent Contractor Receives Call and Confidences Directly
In Ixchel Pharma, LLC v. Biogen, Inc., 20 Cal. Daily Op. Serv. 7729, __ P.3d __(August 3, 2020), the California Supreme Court made it easier for businesses to enforce restrictive covenants against other businesses. This holding is a directional shift for the Court which had previously narrowly construed the applicable statute (California Business & Professions Code § 16600) when addressing employee mobility issues.
Ixchel sued Biogen in federal court and alleged Ixchel entered into a Collaboration Agreement with Forward to develop a new drug that contained dimethyl fumarate (DEF), which authorized Forward to terminate the agreement at any
Continue Reading California Supreme Court Applies Rule of Reason Test for “Business Only” Restrictive Covenants
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 Nuvasive, Inc. v. Day, No. 19-1611 (1st Cir. April 8,
Continue Reading First Circuit: Massachusetts Employee Must Abide by a Restrictive Covenant Governed by a Delaware Choice of Law Clause – the More Things Change, the More They Stay the Same, Part II
A recently passed Florida law, Florida Statutes 542.336 seeks to prevent medical providers from using restrictive covenants to monopolize medical specialties in rural counties. The law bars the enforcement of “restrictive covenants” against physicians who practice “a medical specialty in a county wherein one entity employs or contracts with, either directly or through related or affiliated entities, all physicians who practice such specialty in that county.” Once a second provider enters the market for a particular specialty in a county, restrictive covenants remain unenforceable in that county for a period of three years.
Although the purpose of the law is
Continue Reading Florida Law Limits Physician Restrictive Covenants in Rural Counties
The recently passed Act to Promote Keeping Workers in Maine is poised to dramatically alter the status of restrictive covenants in Maine. The Act accomplishes this by: (1) prohibiting employers from entering into no-poach agreements with one another; (2) barring employers from entering into noncompetes with lower wage employees; (3) limiting employers’ ability to enforce noncompetes; (4) mandating advanced disclosure of noncompete obligations; and (5) imposing a time delay between when an employee agrees to the terms of a noncompete and when the noncompete obligations actually go into effect. In addition to barring the enforcement of noncompliant noncompetes, the Act
Continue Reading New Maine Law Bans No-Poach Agreements and Dramatically Limits Noncompetes
Maryland recently joined the ranks of states with laws limiting the enforcement of non-compete agreements against low wage workers. Maryland’s recently enacted law (SB 328) bars employers from enforcing non-compete agreements against workers earning less than or equal to $15 per hour or $31,200 per annum.
In a nod to employers, the statute is carefully worded to protect low wage workers exclusively and “may not be construed to affect a determination by a court in an action involving” an employee whose earnings exceed both $15 per hour and $31,200 per annum. The statute only bars the enforcement of
Continue Reading Maryland Law Bars Enforcement of Non-Compete Agreements Against Low Wage Workers
The State of Utah on March 22, 2019 returned to the topic of non-competes for the third time in three years. It had passed that statute in 2016 (as we noted), and then amended in 2018 (as we also discussed here earlier), and now is at it again, by amending it once more. Maybe they are hoping that the third time’s a charm, as they say.
It seems that, like Goldilocks, the broadcasting industry found the original 2016 statutory bed to be a little too hard for it to sleep in. As we discussed
Continue Reading Utah Hopes That Third Time’s a Charm for Non-Compete Statute
Many physicians and other health care workers are familiar with restrictive covenants like non-competition and/or non-solicitation agreements, either as employees who have been asked to sign such covenants as a condition of their employment or as business owners seeking to enforce such covenants to protect their medical practices from competition. These covenants are usually designed to prohibit physicians or other practitioners from leaving and setting up a competing practice nearby using patient contacts, information, and/or training that they received during their employment or association with the former employer.
Restrictive covenants generally are regulated by state laws and cases, which can
Continue Reading Non-Compete Laws Affecting Health Care Professionals in Various U.S. Jurisdictions