Willis of New York, Inc., et al., Respondents, v. Anthony DeFelice et al., Appellants., 299 A.D.2d 240

Summary

The employees left the employer's employ to take positions at defendant business, a long-standing, direct and intense competitor of the employer in the insurance brokerage business. The appellate court held that the trial court's order restrained three of the employees from soliciting clients actually enforced restrictive covenants entered into by those employees. Since the employer did not show that two of those employees' services were unique, those two employees should not have been enjoined. The third employee's services were unique, however, and the two-year duration of his restrictive covenant was reasonable. He was currently working at the New York office of a competitor, and it would certainly have been reasonable to enforce a restrictive covenant covering New York. However, since the record disclosed that many of his clients were loyal to him personally, and not to the firm, he should not have been enjoined from soliciting the clients he originally brought with him to the ...