Opinion ID: 4363969
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Commission agreements

Text: While working at Heartland, Volrath also signed at least twenty-two commission agreements—all of which he signed after the manager agreement. These agreements let employees sell their rights to future commission payments in exchange for a lump-sum payment. Each commission agreement also contains a non-solicitation clause equal in scope to the narrow ban in the manager agreement: for several years, Volrath may not solicit Heartland’s merchants that he signed. True, the clause did change once over the years, and the earlier version applied to “any merchant having a Merchant Agreement with [Heartland].” App. 99 ¶ 4. And this clause could be read more broadly to bar soliciting any of Heartland’s merchants. But Volrath concedes that the merchants at issue in the earlier version are only those that he signed. Appellant’s Br. 8 & n.2. And the language he quotes that purportedly 3 broadens this reach is found only in the manager agreement, not the commission agreements. The old and new versions of the commission agreement are thus identical in scope. So the commission agreements are narrower than the manager agreement. They do not ban soliciting all Heartland merchants. Nor do they ban soliciting Heartland employees. And unlike the manager agreement’s strict limits on using all confidential information, the commission agreements’ confidentiality clause reaches only the terms of the agreements. Both the commission agreements and management agreement also contain a boilerplate merger clause. That clause provides that each agreement “comprises the entire agreement between the parties hereto with respect to the subject matter hereof and supersedes all prior and contemporaneous agreements and understandings.” App. 100 ¶ 7 (emphasis added); accord App. 34.