So on many occasions on this blog I have posted about under what circumstances a non-compete is valid under Florida non-compete law. So of interest to my reading public is a new case that just came out from a Florida Appeals Court holding that a non-compete agreement against one of an employer’s former tattoo artists was enforceable.
In this case, Morgan worked for Atomic Tattoos for about two years. At the time he was employed he signed a non-compete that said if he left the employ of Atomic that he could not compete against Atomic for 1 year within a 15 mile radius. Atomic argued to the Court that it trained Morgan how to be a tatoo artist and gave him access to its customer lists which they had compiled over years. When Morgan was terminated in 2009, he went 6 miles away and took Atomic’s customer lists and started to solicit and send e-mails to Atomic’s customers.
When the suit was filed, Atomic sought to enjoin Morgan from working within that 15 mile radius as set forth in their non-compete agreement. The trial court denied the injunction. On appeal, the appellate court ruled that the trial court should have granted the injunction and enforced the non-compete against Morgan.
I think this case does not really change my opinion about instances in Florida (that I have set forth in prior posts) where non-competes are not enforceable. In this case, the appeals court seemed to put emphasis on the training provided to Morgan and their customer lists which Morgan admitted to taking with him when he left. In addition, I think the court was more likely to enforce the non-compete given the very reasonable scope of the non-compete. They were only trying to keep him from working within 15 miles of their business. Morgan could have easily gone to work 16 miles away and not been bound by the terms of the non-compete. This was not the type of non-compete where the employer tried to keep the former employee from working in an entire state or county, just a relatively small geographic radius.
In light of this ruling, Morgan will probably have to pay damages and attorneys’ fees to his former employer’s attorneys, something he could have avoided had he not been so bold in his violation of his non-compete agreement.
So if you are fired or quit and are not sure about how to deal with your non-compete agreement, make sure you go to an employment lawyer to have it reviewed and give you some advice. I ahve attached a copy of the court decision to this post.
