An oral, at-will employment relationship will suffice as an employment contract to which such a covenant is ancillary. 941 F. Supp. Employer Interest A covenant intended only to reduce fair and proper competition is void and unenforceable, and where the purpose of the covenant is to prevent competition per se, the covenant will not be enforced. Such covenants may be enforced where the employee through his employment has acquired confidential information or if the employer has a permanent or near-permanent relationship with its customers, and the employee would not have had contact with those customers absent his employment with the employer. The question of whether an employer s relationship with its customers is, or is not, permanent or near-permanent turns on the outcome of one of two tests.
Medical practices appear to present somewhat of a special case.
There appears to be a developing trend among the Appellate Districts to enforce employment covenants ancillary to the employment contracts of physicians without first examining the protectibility of the employer s interest. The courts focus, instead, solely on whether the geographical, durational and activity limitations are reasonable. A. First Appellate District . The physician was a highly specialized surgeon who had obtained his patients primarily through referrals from other ophthalmologists in the area. He conducted his surgical practice at a number of Chicago hospitals.