Articles Posted in Employment Law

Many business contracts contain arbitration provisions, which often creates a question as to whether the contracting parties must resolve their dispute in arbitration. Florida courts consider three elements when determining whether to enforce a contractual arbitration provision. They are (1) whether a valid written agreement to arbitrate exists; (2) whether an arbitrable issue exists; and…

A fiduciary relationship exists when an individual must act in the interests of another. Watkins v. NCNB Nat’l Bank of Fla., N.A., 622 So.2d 1063 (Fla. 3rd DCA 1993) (“To establish a fiduciary relationship, a party must allege some degree of dependency on one side and some degree of undertaking on the other side to…

Florida law protects employers and similarly situated persons from unlawful competition. But every competitive act does not qualify as an unlawful competitive act. White v. Mederi Caretenders Visiting Services of Se. Florida, LLC, 226 So. 3d 774 (Fla. 2017) (“Section 542.335 does not protect covenants ‘whose sole purpose is to prevent competition per se’ because…

We previously wrote about two potential laws that might limit enforceability of non-compete agreements. The first law is a proposed Florida statute that would constrain or prohibit restrictive covenants for certain medical professionals. The second law is a Federal Trade Commission rule that would ban most non-compete agreements as unfair competition. Congress is proposing a…

Nationwide, the body of law regulating non-compete agreements (including non-solicitation covenants, non-circumvention covenants, covenants barring poaching of employees) has been mainly regulated by state statutes as well as court decisions in state and federal courts. Federal law has generally stayed out of the regulation of restrictive covenants. About a year ago, the Federal Trade Commission…

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…

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…

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…

Florida’s non-compete statute, Section 542.335, Florida Statutes, accords broad protection in favor of a business seeking to prevent former employees from competing with the business via goodwill with customers with whom the former employee dealt during his employment. In this regard, section 542.335(1)(b)(3) expressly considers a “legitimate business interest” to include “[s]ubstantial relationships with specific…

The plain terms of a contract control the parties’ course of conduct for all matters subject to that contract’s terms. See Maher v. Schumacher, 605 So.2d 481 (Fla. 3d DCA 1992) (holding that the plain meaning of the contractual language used by the parties controls). The Court is prohibited from rewriting contract terms. Pol v.…