Articles Posted in Business Litigation

Plaintiffs often assert the common law cause of action of tortious interference in conjunction with other claims associated with unlawful competition. This is because the elements needed to prove the common law tort frequently use the same or substantially similar facts as those needed to establish breach of a restrictive covenant and other claims of…

Florida’s Deceptive and Unfair Trade Practices Act (FDUTPA) can be a powerful statute because plaintiffs can bring a wide variety of claims due to the expansive nature of what constitutes an unfair method of competition. FDUTPA prohibits “[u]nfair methods of competition, unconscionable acts or practices, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in the conduct…

The Florida restrictive covenant statute allows employers to restrain employees from working for a competitor so long as the non-competition agreement is supported by a legitimate business interest and is reasonable in time, area, and line of business. Fla. Stat. 542.335. Employees that enter contracts containing non-compete agreements can be prohibited from working for a…

A trade secret plaintiff may have to divulge its claimed trade secret with reasonable particularity to the defendant before engaging in discovery because a growing number of courts require trade secret plaintiffs to do so. This rule places the plaintiff in a “Catch-22.” See DeRubeis v. Witten Techs., Inc., 244 F.R.D. 676 (N.D. Ga. 2007)…

Arbitration is a voluntary process to resolve disputes and is favored by the courts. The Federal Arbitration Act (commonly referred to as the “FAA”) sets forth the requirements for arbitration and rules for judicial review and confirmation of an arbitration decision. Judicial review of commercial arbitration awards is narrowly limited under the FAA. The United…

Some employers have confronted the situation where employees have taken corporate trade secrets to use in competition against their former employer, but the employees had not signed a non-compete agreement. Under Florida law, however, the fact that the former employees did not sign a non-compete agreement is not dispositive concerning whether the business may enforce…

In many business litigation cases, the issue of damages is an important issue at trial. For many cases, the parties will have expert witness on the issue of damages. Precedent from the United States Supreme Court in Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 113 S.Ct. 2786 (1993), held that the “Frye standard,” i.e., the long…

Florida law has a statutory privilege concerning disclosure of trade secrets in a lawsuit. Florida Statutes Section 90.506 states in pertinent part: “A person has a privilege to refuse to disclose, and to prevent other persons from disclosing, a trade secret owned by that person if the allowance of the privilege will not conceal fraud…

Under Florida law, courts evaluate the enforceability of non-compete agreements based on Florida Statutes Section 542.335 as well as case law interpreting this statute. Under Section 542.335(1)(b), Florida Statutes, to establish that the contract restricting competition is itself lawful and enforceable, a party must simply “plead and prove the existence of one or more legitimate…

Commercial contracts often have dispute resolution provisions requiring the parties to the contract to have their claims decided in arbitration. Arbitration is legal proceeding decided by a private decisionmaker, i.e., a judge. Parties sometimes choose arbitration due to its more private approach and because the right to appeal is very limited. Courts consider at least…