Court Opinion

ID: 9561450
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-21 18:09:58.773635+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:13:49.181273
License: Public Domain

McMurray, Presiding Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
1. The majority in Division 1 would “disapprove” language in Vortex Protective Svc. v. Dempsey, 218 Ga. App. 763, 765 (2), 766-767 (2) (a) (463 SE2d 67), for “suggesting that prohibitions on competition with respect to customers or potential customers beyond those with whom the employee dealt during his employment will always be unreasonable, even if in a specified and reasonable geographic area. . . .” (Emphasis supplied.) Majority opinion, Division 1, p. 71, ante. But that is precisely the rationale employed by the Supreme Court in defining the parameters of permissible restrictions in post-employment non-compete covenants. “A restriction relating to the area where the employee did business on behalf of the employer has been enforced as a legitimate protection of the employer’s interest (Puritan/Churchill Chem. Co. v. McDaniel, [248 Ga. 850, 851 (1) (286 SE2d 297)]; Howard Shultz & Assoc. v. Broniec, [239 Ga. 181, 183 (236 SE2d 265)]), but the prohibition against post-employment solicitation of any customer of the employer located in a specific geographic area is an unreasonable and overbroad attempt to protect the employer’s interest in preventing the employee from exploiting the personal relationship the employee has enjoyed with the employer’s customers. Orkin Exterminating Co. v. Walker, [251 Ga. 536, 538 (2) (307 SE2d 914)], Singer v. Habif, Arogeti & Wynne, [250 Ga. 376 (297 SE2d 473)]. Compare Nunn v. Orkin Exterminating Co., 256 Ga. 558[, 559] (1a) (350 SE2d 425) (1986) (where the prohibition against soliciting any customer was limited to the geographic area the employee had serviced while employed by his employer).” *73(Emphasis in original and supplied.) W. R. Grace & Co. v. Mouyal, 262 Ga. 464, 465 (2), 466-467 (422 SE2d 529). That the Supreme Court did not there overrule Nunn v. Orkin Exterminating Co., 256 Ga. 558, supra, is immaterial, since that court expressly distinguished the Nunn case from others where, “[i]n essence, the court held that a prohibition against doing business with any of an employer’s customers, whether or not a relationship existed between the customer and the former employee, is overbroad. The [Supreme Court] later specifically so held in Orkin Exterminating Co. v. Walker, supra.” (Emphasis in original.) W. R. Grace Co. v. Mouyal, 262 Ga. 464, 465 (2), 467, fn. 2, supra. Indeed, “a restrictive covenant prohibiting a former employee from rendering services to any client of the employer must contain a territorial restriction expressed in geographic terms because that restriction, which does not take into account whether the employee had a business relationship with that client or whether it was the client who solicited the former employee, is otherwise unreasonable and overbroad. . . .” (Emphasis in original and supplied.) Id. at 467, fn. 3, supra. The ban on contact with “any customer” in the W. R. Grace & Co. situation expressly “ ‘provided that the restrictions . . . shall apply only to customers or prospects . . . with which Employee had contact during [the] two-year period [immediately preceding cessation of Employee’s employment],’ ” and so is not truly a forbidden blanket prohibition. Id. at 464. The Supreme Court has recently stated without qualification, “ ‘a prohibition against doing business with any of an employer’s customers, whether or not a relationship existed between the customer and the former employee, is overbroad.’ (Emphasis in original.) [Cit.]” American Software USA v. Moore, 264 Ga. 480 (1), 483 (448 SE2d 206).
In my view, the case sub judice is not a proper vehicle for “disapproving” language from the Supreme Court authorities applied in Vortex Protective Svc. v. Dempsey, 218 Ga. App. 763, 765 (2), 766 (2) (a), supra. In Vortex, the post-employment restrictive covenant specified a readily identifiable geographical limitation but contained “no language limiting the application of this restriction to those customers or prospective customers [that employee had] contacted during his employment with Vortex.” Id. at 766. It is the continuing viability of Nunn v. Orkin Exterminating Co., 256 Ga. 558, 559 (1) (a), supra, (or perhaps its application) that should be questioned in light of the Supreme Court’s subsequent holdings. But the responsibility to “disapprove” language taken from an applicable Supreme Court decision does not rest with this Court.
2. As to the merits of Division 1 of the majority, I concur in the judgment only that the restrictive covenant in this case, involving practitioners of a learned profession, is reasonable in time and scope, and so is enforceable among parties of roughly equal bargaining *74power and acumen. See Rash v. Toccoa Clinic Med. Assoc., 253 Ga. 322, 324 (2), 325 (320 SE2d 170); Delli-Gatti v. Mansfield, 223 Ga. App. 76, 78 (3), 80 (477 SE2d 134).
Decided March 20, 1997
Reconsiderations denied April 4, 1997
Before Judge Wheeler.
Garcia & Powell, Ralph W. Powell, Jr., John W. Daniel, for appellants.
James P. McCrary, for appellee.