Chicago Business Litigation Lawyer Blog
As our economy continues to expand all over the country and the globe, it forces us to reconsider some of the ways in which we do business.
For example, when companies started including non-compete agreements in their contracts with their employees, the federal and state governments allowed it – as long as the non-compete agreements met certain requirements. Chief among those requirements was a time limit and a geographical limit. Ideally, non-compete agreements should protect the legitimate business interests of the company (by making sure employees don’t go to a direct competitor with trade secrets), without severely restricting further employment opportunities for the worker.
But as companies continue to grow and expand into national and international markets, their competitors can reasonably be considered to be operating just about everywhere. That’s the case Horizon Health Corp. is making in its lawsuit against Acadia Healthcare Co. Inc. and the individual Acadia employees who were allegedly bound by a non-compete agreement when they were working for Horizon.
The contract prohibited the employees from going to work for another “psychiatric management company,” for one year after termination of their employment with Horizon, but there was no geographic limit to the non-compete agreement. Continue reading ›