California courts strike non-solicits

Two recent California decisions warrant immediate review by companies that might seek to enforce non-solicitation covenants. The two courts each struck covenants that prohibited former employees from soliciting the company’s employees. The first decision was announced by the California Court of Appeals, which summarized its analysis of the non-solicit at-issue, as follows:

Turning to the instant case, we independently conclude that the nonsolicitation of employee provision in the CNDA is void under section 16600. Indeed, the broadly worded provision prevents individual defendants, for a period of at least one year after termination of employment with AMN, from either “directly or indirectly” soliciting or recruiting, or causing others to solicit or induce, any employee of AMN. This provision clearly restrained individual defendants from practicing with Aya their chosen profession — recruiting travel nurses on 13-week assignments with AMN. (See Dowell, supra, 179 Cal.App.4th at p. 575 [finding a broadly worded nonsolicitation clause preventing employees from rendering any service to “any of the accounts, customers or clients with whom they had contact during their last 12 months of employment” void under section 16600]; D’Sa, supra, 85 Cal.App.4th at p. 930 [finding a provision in an employee confidentiality agreement was void under section 16600 because it prevented an employee from rendering “`services, directly or indirectly, for a period of one year after separation of employment with [employer] to any person or entity in connection with any [c]ompeting [p]roduct'”]; Metro Traffic Control, Inc. v. Shadow Traffic Network (1994) 22 Cal.App.4th 853, 859 (Metro Traffic) [finding a broadly worded noncompetition provision void under section 16600 because it prevented an employee from working for a competitor for a period of one year after termination from the employer].)

As that quote suggests, the Court of Appeals noted that the non-solicit acted, for these individuals, who were recruiters, like a non-compete. If they could not solicit the company’s employees, the Court of Appeals reasoned, they could not compete, since recruiting was their business.

Would this analysis apply even where the individual was not a recruiter? It isn’t clear, but the second recent court decision suggests it might.

Employers should have their proprietary information agreements (and any other agreement containing covenants) reviewed by legal counsel, especially if California law may be implicated.

Source: AMN Healthcare, Inc. v. Aya Healthcare Services, Inc., case no. No. D071924 (Cal.App. 11/1/18); Barker v. Insight Global, LLC, case no. 16-cv-07186-BLF (N.D.Cal. 1/11/19).