Preliminary Injunction Affirmed Based on Noncompete Agreement but not Trade Secrets
The Arkansas Court of Appeals affirmed a preliminary injunction in Freeman v. Brown Hiller, Inc., No. 07-717 (4/2/08).
Freeman was an insurance agent for BHC. She signed a limited noncompete agreement that prohibited her from soliciting BHC customers for a period of 2 years after her employment ended. The contract also had a provision prohibiting disclosure of trade secrets. The agreement did not contain a geographic limitation. Freeman resigned and immediately went to work for a competitor. Before resigning she accessed, copied and deleted 300 of BHC's computer files.
The trial court granted the preliminary injunction for breach of the noncompete agreement but not for trade secret misappropriation. On appeal, Freeman argued the agreement was really an unenforceable covenant not to compete masquerading as a nondisclosure agreement. The court of appeals rejected this argument and affirmed the preliminary injunction.
Although Freeman copied an deleted 300 computer files, BHC did not bring a claim for Computer Trespass or Computer Fraud, which is the focus of this recent Arkansas Lawyer article-- Beyond Trade Secrets: Protecting Business Information in Arkansas.
