Articles Posted in Business Litigation

It has long been recognized that before injunctive relief can be granted a movant must show irreparable injury. Langford v. Rotech Oxygen & Medical Equipment, Inc., 541 So.2d 1267 (Fla. 5th DCA 1989). Many non-compete contracts will contain a provision that stipulates that a violation of the restrictive covenant not to compete would create an…

Purchasers of businesses and business assets often protect their investment by requiring the seller to sign a non-compete agreement. If the seller continued to engage in the same services, there would be little to no incentive for customers to buy from the Purchasers. The contract must specify the type of services that are prohibited by…

Florida employers often require employees to sign non-solicitation agreements to protect their business from having its employees poached. Non-solicitation agreements often fail to define the term “solicit.” Solicitation is defined in Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019), as “[t]he act or an instance of requesting or seeking to obtain something; a request or petition.” Cases…

Businesses submitting licensing applications with state or local government agencies are often required to file confidential documents and financial records. The State of Florida has a broad public records policy requiring that “all state, county, and municipal records…[shall be]…open for personal inspection and copying by any person.” Florida Statute § 119.01(1). Businesses are often confronted…

The term ‘trade dress’ refers to the appearance of a product when that appearance is used to identify the creator of that product. Trade dress encompasses the total image of a product and may include features such as size, shape, color, texture, graphics, or particular sales techniques.” AmBrit, Inc. v. Kraft, Inc., 812 F.2d 1531…

A party seeking a temporary injunction to enforce a non-compete agreement must establish four elements: (1) a likelihood of irreparable harm and the unavailability of an adequate remedy at law; (2) a substantial likelihood of success on the merits; (3) the threatened injury to the petitioner outweighs any possible harm to the respondent, and (4)…

The Lanham Act does not contain a statute of limitations. When the filing of a trademark infringement lawsuit is delayed for years, the defendants may instead assert laches as an affirmative defense. Federal courts use the limitations period for analogous state law claims as a standard for the defense of laches. Peter Mavrick is a…

Many employers possess confidential information vital to generating profits. Employers routinely entrust employees with this information to facilitate business operations, but employees often leave their job after a few years to work for a competitor. When this happens, the employee takes the confidential information he or she learned to the next job. The employee might…

Punitive damages punish and dissuade wrong-doers from committing egregious acts by increasing the damages award to exceed compensable injuries. Cooper Indus., Inc. v. Leatherman Tool Group, Inc., 532 U.S. 424, 432 (2001) (the purpose of punitive damages is to punish and deter future wrongdoing); Engle v. Liggett Group, Inc., 945 So. 2d 1246, 1265 (Fla.…

When parties execute two separate contracts and only one contract contains an arbitration clause, generally the parties cannot be compelled to arbitrate disputes arising from the contract that does not call for arbitration. However, under certain circumstances courts will extend the arbitration provisions from one contract to a separate contract, and the parties may be…