Monthly Archives: August 2007

Massachusetts Judge Uses Strong Words for Enforcing Noncompete

The current trend in the world of noncompete litigation in Massachusetts is away from the enforcement of traditional noncompetes — as distinguished from non-solicitation and non-disclosure provisions.  Massachusetts judges seem to be increasingly skeptical of traditional noncompete provisions in contexts other than very senior, highly-paid employees going to work for direct competitors.  So, when a decision like Eastern Bag & Paper Co., Inc. v. Ross, is issued,… More

Mazonson, Part II: Judge Finds Customer-based Noncompete Overbroad

The Mazonson decision described in the previous post also contained an interesting discussion of the plaintiff’s request to enforce a customer-based restriction against one of the individual defendants.  On this issue as well, the Massachusetts court denied the request for a preliminary injunction.  Interestingly, Judge Murtagh found that the agreement’s restriction prohibiting the employee from providing services or selling insurance to any customer, even if there had been no solicitation by the employee,… More

Employee’s Remote Computer Access Undermines Employer’s injunction Request

Your valuable sales employee abruptly departs and begins working at your direct competitor.  Soon, some of your customers follow the departed employee and other customers cancel meetings you have scheduled with them.  Now you are suspicious, so you scrutinize your former employee’s computer activity and discover that just prior to his departure, he emailed to himself or downloaded valuable customer information and other data.  Can you get an immediate injunction stopping your former employee’s conduct?… More