Court Opinion

ID: 9900745
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-20 12:07:41.325394+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:21:15.462887
License: Public Domain

In the
                     Court of Appeals
             Second Appellate District of Texas
                      at Fort Worth
                  ___________________________
                       No. 02-23-00153-CV
                  ___________________________

  CONTRACT DATASCAN HOLDINGS, INC.; CONTRACT DATASCAN, LP
D/B/A THE INVENTORY EXTRAS; AND GWYN NICOLE SNEAD, Appellants

                                  V.

RETAIL SERVICES WIS CORPORATION D/B/A WIS INTERNATIONAL INC.,
                           Appellee

               On Appeal from the 348th District Court
                       Tarrant County, Texas
                   Trial Court No. 348-341198-23

                Before Bassel, Wallach, and Walker, JJ.
                Memorandum Opinion by Justice Bassel
                               MEMORANDUM OPINION

                                   I. Introduction

       This is an interlocutory appeal from a temporary-injunction order (injunction

order). In the suit below, Appellee Retail Services WIS Corporation d/b/a WIS

International Inc. (WIS) sued Appellants Contract Datascan Holdings, Inc.; Contract

Datascan, LP d/b/a The Inventory Extras (collectively, Datascan); and Gwyn Nicole

Snead (Snead) for various causes of action tied to claims that Datascan had hired

former WIS employees in breach of the employees’ noncompete, nonsolicitation, and

nondisclosure agreements and had induced them to breach their fiduciary duties by

disclosing WIS’s confidential information. The trial court issued an injunction order

for WIS. In three issues with a host of subissues, Datascan makes three broad

challenges to the trial court’s injunction order: (1) challenges to the enforceability of

the employees’ agreements, (2) challenges to the adequacy of proof that WIS offered

to establish its probable right to recovery on the causes of action that it had alleged,

and (3) challenges to the form of the injunction order—alleging that it does not meet

the requirements of Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 683 because it is overly broad and

is vague in its restraints.1

       We sustain Datascan’s third issue complaining that the injunction order fails to

meet the standards of Rule 683. Therefore, with respect to paragraphs b., e., f., g.,

      The individual Appellant, Snead, did not file a brief but joined the brief filed
       1

by Datascan. See Tex. R. App. P. 9.7.

                                           2
and h. of the injunction order’s restraints, we reverse the injunction order and remand

this case to the trial court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

       We overrule Datascan’s second issue and, with one exception, its first issue.

Because we are remanding this case, we instruct the trial court to consider whether the

restraint based on a broadly defined scope of activity in a noncompete provision of

the former employees’ agreements should be narrowed and reformed before being the

subject of injunctive relief.

                      II. Factual and Procedural Background 2

       A.     Factual background

              1.     We set forth how the controversy at issue arose.

       This matter involves a conflict between two companies that provide inventory

services for large retailers, i.e., they are companies that count the merchandise of big

box stores. Here, one customer of both inventory companies—Walmart—is at the

center of the conflict.

       2
        In this appeal, Datascan’s and WIS’s briefs and the reporter’s record were filed
under seal. The reply brief and clerk’s record were not. To the extent possible, we
have tried to generalize the description of the evidence referred to in this opinion to
avoid revealing what the parties may consider confidential. However, we are obliged
to write an opinion that addresses the parties’ contentions. See Tex. R. App. P. 47.1
(“The court of appeals must hand down a written opinion that is as brief as
practicable but that addresses every issue raised and necessary to final disposition of
the appeal.”). Without guidance from the parties—other than simply sealing the
record and briefs—we are left to reach our own balance between the need to address
adequately the contentions raised and the parties’ desire to preserve what they believe
is confidential.

                                            3
      The controversy originated during a period when two companies—WIS and

RGIS, LLC—competed to do Walmart’s inventories. In 2021, WIS acquired RGIS.

Apparently, wanting more than one option for an inventory-service provider, Walmart

issued a Request for Proposal (RFP) in mid-2022, soliciting companies to make

proposals for performing inventory services in its forty-six markets. Never having

done inventory work for Walmart before, Datascan submitted responses to the RFP.

The RFP process resulted in Walmart’s dividing its inventory work between three

providers:   WIS was awarded thirty-five markets, Datascan was awarded seven

markets, and a company named OSL was awarded the remaining four markets.

      Walmart’s inventories are conducted by teams of supervisors and inventory

specialists, whose work is managed by multiple layers of managers. After the RFP

process, Datascan began putting together teams to perform inventories in its newly

assigned Walmart markets. How Datascan went about assembling the teams to

perform its Walmart inventories is at the heart of the dispute. WIS contends that

Datascan had to assemble its teams in short order and so it “poached” WIS managers

who were directly involved in its Walmart inventory process. WIS further contends

that Datascan did this to obtain WIS’s confidential information as to how to conduct

Walmart inventories and that Datascan knowingly induced the managers to violate

agreements barring them from (1) taking employment with a company that competed

with WIS, (2) soliciting its employees for a period of one year after they left WIS’s

employment, and (3) disclosing WIS’s confidential information.

                                         4
      Snead, who was a Regional Talent Manager for RGIS, went to work for

Datascan. 3   WIS sued Datascan as well as Snead because she allegedly solicited

employees to join Datascan.

      Datascan responds to WIS’s allegations at a general level by contending (1) that

it hired the Former Management Employees (FMEs) not because of their knowledge

of WIS’s confidential processes in conducting Walmart inventories but because of

their abilities to manage the lower-level employees who conduct the inventories and

(2) that it did not need or access any of WIS’s confidential information. At a specific

level and as we will detail, Datascan launches a multi-front attack on the legal bases

for WIS’s contentions and the injunctive relief granted by the trial court.

              2.    We set forth the structure of an inventory team and its
                    management, as well as the movement of managers to
                    Datascan that is the basis of WIS’s suit.

      As noted, the primary focus of the dispute is on the managers who left the

employ of WIS or its affiliates and went to Datascan. The WIS management structure

includes three levels of managers who operate under WIS’s vice president of Walmart

operations. In descending level of authority, these are Regional Managers, District

Managers, and Area Managers. The managers are salaried employees. Below the

managers are teams of hourly employees who hold the title of inventory supervisor

      3
       Snead had been a district manager with RGIS before she became a Regional
Talent Manager. She had signed an Employee Intellectual Property Agreement with
RGIS in 2017.

                                            5
and who have hourly inventory auditors working under them. The migration of nine

FMEs from WIS (or RGIS after it was acquired by WIS) is the suit’s focus.

             3.     We explain the documents that allegedly bind the FMEs.

      WIS contends that the FMEs are violating employment agreements they had

with WIS or which protect WIS’s interests. With certain exceptions, the FMEs signed

documents variously titled “Employee Intellectual Property Agreement” or

“Restrictive Covenant & Confidentiality Agreement.”           Generally, the agreements

contained a broadly worded definition of “confidential information” that covered in

part “the Company’s sophisticated, state-of-the-art inventory service systems

consisting of hardware and/or software for handheld computers, data compilation,

data storage and data transmittal, and the know-how to create and implement such

information (all such information is hereinafter referred to as the ‘Confidential

Information’).” The agreements prohibited the disclosure of confidential information

to anyone “other than” the employer’s personnel.

      The documents also contained an agreement not to compete that limited the

scope of the FMEs’ activity for one year after leaving employment as follows:

      During the period of employment by WIS of Employee (the
      “Employment Period”) and for a period of one year thereafter,
      Employee shall not, without the prior written consent of WIS, engage in
      any business activity or work that is in any way competitive with any
      Business of WIS (as defined herein) or perform any services for or sell,
      solicit, or attempt to sell or solicit any services to, or interfere with WIS’s
      relationship with any person, company[,] or other entity that was a
      customer of WIS or was identified as a prospective customer of WIS
      during the period that Employee was Employed by WIS.

                                            6
The geographic scope of this restriction in the agreements was generally “anywhere in

the United States of America and its territories and possessions.”         Finally, the

agreements provided that “[d]uring the Employment Period and for a period of one

year thereafter, Employee shall not, directly or indirectly, induce any person employed

by WIS to leave the employment of WIS.”

             4.     We set forth the clashes over whether the FMEs’ agreements
                    bound the FMEs.

      In the trial court, Datascan argued three basic points in support of its view that

the FMEs are not bound by the agreements that WIS relies on to support its claims.

Datascan then challenged whether the agreements, even if arguably binding the FMEs

or protecting WIS’s interests, are so broad in their restraints that they are

unenforceable under Texas law.4

      Five of the FMEs signed agreements with WIS.5 The agreements were signed

in the same time frame that WIS became aware that Walmart had awarded markets to

Datascan. Datascan’s first and second arguments regarding why the FMEs who

signed these documents are not bound by them focus first on the time frame in which

the agreements were obtained—that being the period when the processes of RGIS

and WIS were being integrated. WIS claimed that it wanted to ensure that the

      4
       For one FME, no agreement was introduced.
      5
       One of the FMEs was a California resident, and due to California law, the
agreement that she signed did not contain a covenant not to compete or a
nonsolicitation provision but contained only a confidentiality agreement.

                                          7
agreements were in place before the individual offices’ financial statements, which

were generated by the integration process that resulted from the acquisition of RGIS

by WIS, were released to managers. As its first challenge, Datascan emphasized that

the agreements introduced into evidence were not even signed by WIS. Second,

Datascan noted that the employees who signed the agreements were already employed

by WIS when they signed them and had received WIS confidential information long

before signing the agreements. Because of this, Datascan argued that contrary to

WIS’s claim, WIS provided no consideration for the execution of the agreements in

the form of the disclosure of additional confidential information after their

execution.6

      Third, several of the FMEs did not execute an agreement with WIS but had

signed agreements only with RGIS before that company was acquired by WIS. In

Datascan’s view, these documents provided no protection to WIS because the

agreements bound the employees to protect the information of RGIS, which used a

different inventory technology than WIS’s, and because the one-year noncompete

period was from termination of employment with RGIS, not WIS. WIS countered

this argument by noting that the RGIS agreements contained a provision making

them applicable to “successors” and created protections for affiliates of RGIS, which

WIS contends it became as a result of its acquisition of RGIS.

      6
       One FME who was tendered a WIS agreement refused to sign.

                                          8
      Turning to the restraints that the agreements contain, Datascan argued in the

trial court (and carries forward the argument on appeal) that the agreements are

unenforceable because two of their restraints are overly broad.             Datascan first

contended the agreements’ scope-of-activity restraints were indefensibly broad

because they prohibited the employment of the FMEs, not just for the customers for

whom they had done work while employed by WIS and/or RGIS but also for “any

business that is in any way competitive with the businesses of RGIS or WIS.”

Datascan also attacked the nationwide scope of the covenant’s geographic restriction.

                5.     We explain the clash over what WIS claimed was
                       confidential and what was actually confidential.

      WIS cataloged as follows the information that it contended generally was

confidential:

      •         Financial information such as “the profit[-]and[-]loss statements of each

                individual team, crew, district, whichever nomenclature you choose to

                use.” This information was considered confidential because “it contains

                the revenue, the expense items that went in to performing that business,

                and then results in . . . either a profit or loss in a margin percentage in

                dollars.”

      •         WIS’s software platform.

      •         Payroll information because WIS’s “people are compensated based upon

                their skill set and their level of experience, and that information contains

                                              9
             their tenure, their pay rates. And the district and area managers both

             already know the skill set level of those individuals because they’re

             measured every day.”

      •      The skill sets of the individual employees who conduct the inventories.

      •      Internal reports that “ensure that [WIS] meet[s] the expectations of

             Walmart[;] there are key underlying areas of the inventory that [WIS]

             establish[es] internal, for lack of a better word, parameters or guidelines

             upon what normal expectations should look like. And then . . . [WIS]

             use[s] software to draw exceptions out.”

WIS asserted that it had safeguarded its confidential information by limiting who had

access to it and by doing such things as password-protecting access to laptops and

then requiring additional passwords to access financial information.

      The main thrust at the temporary-injunction hearing regarding what WIS

considered confidential was the “process of conducting inventory at Walmart.” A

WIS executive testified that Walmart’s inventory process was different from that of

any other retailer in America and that Walmart had “a very sophisticated process with

very rigid parameters and expectations [that was], from a technological standpoint,

more advanced than any other retailer’s inventory program.” The executive testified

why the process was considered confidential:

      Well, I mentioned earlier that Walmart tells you what to do but not how
      to do it. So what we do with our management team and [what] we’ve

                                          10
      established over years of trial and error and on-hand experience is . . .
      [the most] efficient process possible to execute the inventory under the
      parameters that Walmart has given us, exceeding even their best
      expectations in terms of scoring.

             And this is achieved through numerous steps including resource
      allocation, including internal reporting, all these things that are critical to
      the execution of the inventory.

According to the executive, these processes were constantly evolving.

      The WIS executive also testified that the process piece of WIS’s Walmart

confidential information was independent of the inventory software that WIS utilized:

      Q. Okay. And . . . you were asked questions on cross-examination
      about your testimony earlier about the “what” -- what Walmart wanted
      you to do and then the how you did it, right?

             Do you remember that testimony?

             A. I do.

            Q. Okay. And then when you talk about management’s
      execution and processes and procedures, that’s the “how,” right?

             A. Yes.

             Q. Is that confidential?

             A. Yes.

            Q. How much time has WIS spent developing the process and
      procedures that le[d] to the “how” it does its job for Walmart?

             A. That process has been developed over years.

             Q. That’s independent of software, correct?

             A. Correct.

                                            11
      Another witness detailed the unique process entailed in conducting a Walmart

inventory.     During this witness’s testimony, WIS’s Walmart field manual was

introduced into evidence and was described as a

      crew field manual that we put together. So Walmart gives us . . . a set of
      instructions, right, and so we basically take what they give us, and then
      we break it down to how we train our counters, the different processes,
      what to expect, how we run our flows, all those various things, but that
      is all included here in this manual.

The manual is not shared with Walmart or anyone other than WIS employees.

Though the manual is a guide for managers, the counters and inventory specialists

paid on an hourly basis may have access to it. However, if an hourly employee

provided the manual to someone outside of WIS, that would violate WIS’s code of

conduct.

      Datascan challenged whether the FMEs actually had any information that

warranted being protected because it was confidential, because it was treated as

confidential by WIS, or because WIS had taken adequate steps to protect the

information.    Datascan made this point at the temporary-injunction hearing and

continues to do so throughout its brief in several different ways:

      •        Datascan noted the admission that it had obtained from a WIS executive

               that he was concerned about what the FMEs carried in their heads and

               that though he thought it was obvious that the confidential information

               included what they had obtained by working at WIS, he did not know

                                           12
    whether the FMEs were using that information in their work for

    Datascan.

•   Datascan emphasized that in performing Walmart inventories it was

    using its own proprietary technology, which it had spent thousands of

    hours developing. WIS, on the other hand, had its own proprietary

    technology that was used in its Walmart inventories. Datascan also

    highlighted what it described as massive efforts of its employees to fine

    tune the software to meet Walmart’s needs.

•   Datascan underscored that much of the inventory process was dictated

    by Walmart’s inventory app. Though WIS claimed that it had spent

    three years assisting Walmart with building the app, WIS also

    acknowledged that the app was the property of Walmart and was not a

    part of WIS’s confidential information.

•   Datascan contended that much of the allegedly confidential information

    had come to the FMEs before they even began working for WIS.

•   Datascan claimed that WIS had allowed the FMEs to acquire what it

    contended to be confidential information before they were required to

    sign agreements protecting WIS’s allegedly confidential information.

                                13
      •      Though WIS had sent cease-and-desist letters to others that it alleged

             had obtained its confidential information, Datascan emphasized WIS

             had not sued those entities.

             6.    We set forth the parties’ clash over the propriety of
                   Datascan’s actions.

      One fact that was not in dispute was that a number of the FMEs who had

recently worked for WIS or affiliated companies were, at the time of the temporary-

injunction hearing, working for Datascan or companies that WIS claimed Datascan

was using to hide its involvement with the FMEs. To set the stage for our discussion,

we noted above that Datascan had explained that this was a consequence of its

seeking employees who had the skills to manage people in the challenging

environment of conducting Walmart inventories. Datascan also emphasized, again,

that these employees were trained using its proprietary software that was unique to it

and different from that used by WIS.

      And, again, WIS’s view of Datascan’s motives was darker. In its view,

      WIS [had] filed the lawsuit because Datascan [had] entered into a bid
      with Walmart despite not having the infrastructure from a personnel
      standpoint to execute it, but . . . upon award of the business, they then
      had to develop and stand up that infrastructure, and they [had done] so
      by poaching [WIS’s] management employees.

      The attribution of innocent or dark motives carried forward into the actions

that Datascan took to staff its teams who performed Walmart inventories—with the

                                            14
parties clashing both as to whether the actions occurred and as to what motive should

be attributed to them. Without going through each, some examples are as follows:

      •      Individuals named Ford and Siler worked as Datascan’s Director of

             Inventory Solutions and its Regional Director on its Walmart team,

             respectively. Both had worked for WIS and RGIS for decades and had

             been terminated from WIS. Ford had been the Chief Operating Officer

             of WIS.    Their testimony contains the following points that WIS

             emphasizes:

             •     Of the sixteen managers on Datascan’s Walmart teams, at one

                   point in time, eleven or twelve of them had been WIS employees.

             •     Though Ford testified that Datascan did not view the FMEs’

                   prior agreements as enforceable, he also acknowledged that

                   Datascan knew of the noncompete agreements that the FMEs

                   had signed and considered the consequences of possible actions

                   that WIS might take to enforce them.

             •     Siler wrote Ford an email that suggested an optimal situation for

                   Datascan was to fill the management positions on its Walmart

                   teams with people who had detailed knowledge of Walmart’s

                   inventory requirements, and that email listed former WIS

                   managers.    Ford responded merely “[n]ot necessarily” when

                                         15
                   asked, “The reason that hiring WIS employees in management

                   positions on Datascan’s Walmart team was optimal was because

                   Datascan was looking for people to fill those roles [who] had

                   detailed knowledge of specific Walmart inventory requirements,

                   right?”

      •     Datascan allegedly used another company to hire former WIS employees

            because they had noncompete agreements. Datascan reimbursed the

            other company for the employees’ salaries and did not treat the

            employees of the other company differently than Datascan employees.

            Datascan later offered another explanation for why former WIS

            employees were hired by the other company, such as it had a more

            liberal drug testing policy.

      •     Datascan still considered hiring other WIS managers with noncompete

            agreements after it had received a cease-and-desist letter from WIS’s

            counsel.

      WIS presented the testimony of its employees who had been solicited to join

Datascan. WIS also presented (1) testimony that a Datascan employee had solicited

confidential rate information from a WIS employee and that Snead had solicited and

contacted a WIS team member and (2) expert testimony that information had been

copied from a WIS laptop. Datascan responded that the employee seeking rate

                                           16
information was fired, that the authenticity of the alleged solicitation by Snead was

highly suspicious, and that the expert testimony was so vague that it proved nothing.

      To support its position that it had hired WIS’s FMEs for their ability to manage

people, Datascan described Walmart inventories as “tough,” which prompted its need

for “people [who] can motivate, manage, support, and help to be able to perform at

their best, and that’s what we were looking for.” Once hired, the FMEs were trained

on Datascan’s technology, which was a different system than WIS’s.

      Datascan also contended that it did not disregard the fact that certain of the

FMEs had signed noncompete agreements but addressed that situation by having its

counsel review the agreements. After that review, Datascan “felt confident that [it]

could proceed.” Datascan further asserted that it took steps to ensure that the FMEs

were instructed not to use WIS’s confidential information. Datascan also attacked

what it couched as WIS’s newly found concerns about what it contended is its

confidential information and asserted that WIS had done a poor job of protecting the

information that it now contends is confidential. In sum, it is Datascan’s view that

WIS is not acting to protect its secrets but has launched an attack strategically timed

to disrupt Datascan’s ability to compete for the work that it fairly won from Walmart

and which it is performing with the capabilities that it developed rather than with any

information it allegedly pirated from WIS.

                                          17
      B.     Procedural background

      WIS filed “Plaintiff’s Verified Original Petition and Application for Temporary

Restraining Order and Temporary and Permanent Injunction” naming Datascan and

Snead as defendants. We will not attempt to outline the factual allegations of the

petition, which spans more than sixty pages. The petition alleged the following causes

of action: (1) breach of contract for breach of nondisclosure against Snead; (2) breach

of contract for breach of nonsolicitation against Snead; (3) breach of contract for

breach of noncompete against Snead; (4) breach of fiduciary duty against Snead;

(5) tortious interference with the FMEs’ agreements by Datascan; (6) tortious

interference with WIS’s contract with Walmart by Datascan; (7) knowing participation

in breach of fiduciary duty by Datascan; (8) unfair competition by misappropriation

by Datascan; and (9) an application for temporary and permanent injunctive relief.

      The trial court entered an original and an amended temporary restraining order,

which was subsequently extended. The trial court conducted a temporary-injunction

hearing that spanned a day and a half. At the conclusion of the hearing, the trial court

indicated that it would grant a temporary injunction.

      The trial court then signed a temporary-injunction order, which included six

pages of findings that covered the following:

      •      WIS and Datascan had a competitive relationship;

                                          18
•   The FMEs hired by Datascan directly or through other companies were

    working with Datascan to compete against WIS;

•   The FMEs were mostly bound by confidentiality, noncompete, and

    nonsolicitation agreements;

•   WIS had provided the FMEs with confidential information (the nature

    of which was described in the findings);

•   The executed agreements bound the FMEs not to disclose confidential

    information and prohibited them for one year following the end of the

    FMEs’ employment with WIS from competing with or soliciting WIS

    employees to leave;

•   Snead and the other former FMEs “are employed in positions that are

    substantially similar to the[] capacities [that they] held when employed at

    WIS[,] and they have similar duties and responsibilities to those

    previously performed while they were working at WIS”;

•   “Snead has solicited WIS employees to join Datascan and/or another

    competitor to induce those WIS employees to end their employment

    with WIS”;

•   Other former FMEs have solicited WIS employees to leave their

    employment with WIS and “have disclosed or used, or it is highly

                                  19
             probable that they will disclose or use, WIS Confidential Information

             while working for Datascan and in competition with WIS”;

      •      The former FMEs breached the “confidentiality, noncompetition,

             and/or non[]solicitation provisions in their respective [c]onfidentiality

             [a]greements”;

      •      “Datascan knew that each of the [FMEs] had employment agreements

             with     WIS      containing     confidentiality,   non[]solicitation   and

             noncompetition obligations[;] Datascan devised a scheme to cause the

             [FMEs] to breach those agreements and assisted the [FMEs] to conceal

             their breaches from WIS[; and] Datascan further participated in the

             [FMEs] nonsolicitation obligations owed to WIS”; and

      •      WIS has a probable right to recovery and would suffer imminent and

             irreplaceable harm if injunctive relief were not granted.

      Datascan uses the attacks that we have outlined above to challenge many of the

findings in the injunction order and argues that the findings demonstrate an abuse of

discretion in the trial court’s decision to grant a temporary injunction.

      The injunction order also imposed eleven restraints. We will describe those

restraints in more detail when we address Datascan’s challenges to both the breadth

and the lack of specificity of a number of the restraints.

                                            20
       After the trial court signed the injunction order, Snead and Datascan jointly

filed a notice of appeal.

                                     III. Analysis

       A.     We set forth the standard of review that applies when reviewing a
              temporary-injunction order.

       In an interlocutory appeal involving issues similar to the ones at issue in this

appeal, we outlined the standards that govern our review as follows:

       “A temporary injunction is an extraordinary remedy and does not issue
       as a matter of right.” Abbott v. Anti-Defamation League Austin, Sw., &
       Texoma Regions, 610 S.W.3d 911, 916 (Tex. 2020) (quoting Walling v.
       Metcalfe, 863 S.W.2d 56, 57 (Tex. 1993)). Such an injunction functions
       “to preserve the status quo of the litigation’s subject matter pending a
       trial on the merits.” Butnaru v. Ford Motor Co., 84 S.W.3d 198, 204 (Tex.
       2002) (op. on reh’g) (citing Walling, 863 S.W.2d at 57). “To obtain a
       temporary injunction, the applicant must plead and prove three specific
       elements: (1) a cause of action against the defendant; (2) a probable
       right to the relief sought; and (3) a probable, imminent, and irreparable
       injury in the interim.” Id.

               The trial court exercises its sound discretion in deciding whether
       to issue a temporary injunction, and we may reverse that decision only if
       we conclude that the trial court abused its discretion because its actions
       were “so arbitrary that [they] exceeded the bounds of reasonable
       discretion.” Id. Our abuse-of-discretion review requires that we “view
       the evidence in the light most favorable to the trial court’s order [and
       that we indulge] every reasonable inference in its favor.” IAC, Ltd. v. Bell
       Helicopter Textron, Inc., 160 S.W.3d 191, 196 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
       2005, no pet.). Thus, if the trial court must resolve a conflict in the
       evidence, its resolution of a fact issue is one to which we must defer.
       Wright v. Sport Supply Grp., Inc., 137 S.W.3d 289, 292 (Tex. App.—
       Beaumont 2004, no pet.). However, we review the trial court’s
       application of the law to established facts and the resolution of pure legal
       questions de novo. Jelinis, LLC v. Hiran, 557 S.W.3d 159, 165 (Tex.
       App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2018, pet. denied) . . . ; Tom James of Dall.,
       Inc. v. Cobb, 109 S.W.3d 877, 883 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2003, no pet.).

                                           21
      Also, “[w]hen the trial court embeds findings of fact and conclusions of
      law in its order denying a temporary injunction, the findings and
      conclusions may be helpful in determining whether the trial court
      exercised its discretion in a principled fashion[;] however, they are not
      binding on this court.” Communicon, Ltd. v. Guy Brown Fire & Safety, Inc.,
      No. 02-17-00330-CV, 2018 WL 1414837, at *6 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth
      Mar. 22, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op.).

             Because the temporary injunction only preserves the status quo
      pending final trial, the trial court’s determination regarding whether to
      issue the temporary injunction does not resolve the ultimate merits of
      the suit. Brooks v. Expo Chem. Co., 576 S.W.2d 369, 370 (Tex. 1979). The
      assumption is that the evidence may well change between the
      preliminary temporary-injunction stage of the proceeding and a final trial
      on the merits. Burgess v. Denton C[n]ty., 359 S.W.3d 351, 359 n.35 (Tex.
      App.—Fort Worth 2012, no pet.) (citing Davis v. Huey, 571 S.W.2d 859,
      862 (Tex. 1978)). Thus, the probability-of-success requirement does not
      require an applicant to show that it will prevail at final trial. [Young Gi]
      Kim v. [Ick Soo] Oh, No. 05-19-00947-CV, 2020 WL 2315854, at *2 (Tex.
      App.—Dallas May 11, 2020, no pet.) (mem. op.). The requirement goes
      no further than necessitating that “the applicant [ ] present enough
      evidence to raise a bona fide issue as to its right to ultimate relief.” Id.

Hernandez v. Combined Ins. Co. of Am., No. 02-20-00225-CV, 2021 WL 520456, at *5–6

(Tex. App.—Fort Worth Feb. 11, 2021, pet. denied) (mem. op.).

      B.     Datascan asserts that the trial court abused its discretion by
             awarding temporary-injunctive relief because the restrictive
             covenants that WIS relies on are unenforceable.

      In its first issue, Datascan launches a host of attacks on the enforceability of

the covenants contained in various agreements signed by the FMEs, including

overbreadth, lack of consideration, the failure to execute, and the failure to modify the

agreements to make WIS a party to them. For the most part and based on the liberal

                                           22
standard that applies to the review of a temporary-injunction order, we overrule the

contentions.

               1.   In the temporary-injunction context, the trial court did not
                    abuse its discretion by failing to conclude that the covenants
                    at issue were unenforceable because they lacked a
                    reasonable limitation on their scope of activity. However,
                    because this case is being remanded, we instruct the trial
                    court to determine whether the scope of activity should be
                    modified in an amended temporary-injunction order.

      In the first subissue under its first issue, Datascan challenges the restrictive

covenants in the various FMEs’ agreements by claiming that they lack reasonable

limitations on the scope of activity. Specifically, it argues that covenants “imposing

industry-wide exclusions from subsequent employment are per se unreasonable.” In

Datascan’s view, the language in the covenants that prohibits the FMEs from

“engag[ing] in any business activity or work that is in any way competitive with any

Business of” its former employers creates a prohibited industry-wide exclusion.

      Datascan then argues that the impermissible breadth of the covenants is

compounded by their broad definitions of “business”:

      The definitions of the applicable “Business of WIS” and “Business of
      RGIS” are likewise improperly overbroad and seek to cover not only a
      collection of multiple entire industries[] but [also] every type of business
      that could be considered “supportive or incidental to” such industries.
      These terms are defined to include “any business that [employer]
      engages in at any time during the Employment Period, including,
      without limitation, the provision of temporary help, merchandising,
      mapping[,] or inventory services to the retail, wholesale, commercial[,]
      and supply[-]chain industries, and any other business engaged in by
      [employer] during the Employment Period, and all activities supportive
      of and incidental to such services or other businesses.”

                                          23
       In essence, both Datascan’s and WIS’s briefs address the breadth of the

restraints in a fashion that seeks our ruling either condemning or blessing the

scope-of-activity restriction in the covenants. But in the context of a temporary

injunction, a ruling on the merits for either party at this preliminary stage of the case is

premature. However, because we will remand this case to the trial court to address

defects in the form of the injunction order, 7 we will instruct the trial court to

determine whether the scope of activity subject to its injunction order should be

narrowed.

       With respect to why review of the reasonableness of the scope of activity is

premature, we begin by noting that the restraints in a covenant are enforceable “to the

extent that [they] contain[] limitations as to time, geographical area, and scope of

activity to be restrained that are reasonable and do not impose a greater restraint than

is necessary to protect the goodwill or other business interest of the promise.” Tex.

Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.50(a). Datascan supports its view that the covenants are

unreasonably overbroad by citing authority holding that “[u]nder Texas law,

covenants not to compete that ‘extend[ ] to clients with whom the employee had no

dealings during [her] employment’ or [that] amount to industry-wide exclusions are

‘overbroad and unreasonable.’” D’onofrio v. Vacation Publ’ns, Inc., 888 F.3d 197, 211

(5th Cir. 2018).    WIS cites authority that it asserts validates the view that the

covenants are not overbroad. See Providence Title Co. v. Truly Title, Inc., 547 F. Supp. 3d

       See our discussion of Datascan’s third issue infra Section III.D.
       7

                                            24
585, 599 (E.D. Tex. 2021) (upholding covenant that prohibited employee from

“work[ing] or consult[ing] for or otherwise affiliat[ing] hisself [sic]/herself with any

business in competition with or otherwise similar to [employer]’s”), aff’d sub nom.

Providence Title Co. v. Fleming, No. 21-40578, 2023 WL 316138 (5th Cir. Jan. 19, 2023)

(per curiam) (not designated for publication); Daily Instruments Corp. v. Heidt, 998 F.

Supp. 2d 553, 568 (S.D. Tex. 2014) (findings of fact, conclusions of law, and order on

hearing for preliminary injunction) (holding that agreement that restricted defendant

from performing for competitors the same kind of work performed for former

employer was reasonable). 8

      But as we have noted previously, the ultimate resolution of whether a covenant

not to compete is reasonable is beyond the scope of our review in an appeal from a

temporary injunction:

      As we noted when describing the standard of review, the ultimate merits
      of a suit are not before the trial court when deciding whether to issue a
      temporary injunction. Thus, when we review the propriety of a
      temporary injunction, we do not resolve the ultimate question of
      whether a covenant is legally enforceable under the provisions of Texas
      Business and Commerce Code Section 15.50, which governs those
      covenants. See Henry F. Coffeen III Mgmt., Inc. v. Musgrave, No. 02-16-
      00070-CV, 2016 WL 6277375, at *2 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Oct. 27,
      2016, no pet.) (mem. op.).

           Rather, in the context of a temporary injunction involving a
      noncompete covenant, we review the enforceability issue “only to the

      8
        Throughout its argument, Datascan refers to the findings that were made in
the injunction order. As we noted in Hernandez, we may consider the findings of fact
and conclusions of law embedded in a temporary-injunction order, but they do not
bind us. 2021 WL 520456, at *6.

                                          25
      extent necessary to determine whether the requirements for a temporary
      injunction have been met.” Tranter, Inc. v. Liss, No. 02-13-00167-CV,
      2014 WL 1257278, at *3 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Mar. 27, 2014, no
      pet.) (mem. op.); see also Vaughn v. Intrepid Directional Drilling Specialists,
      Ltd., 288 S.W.3d 931, 938 (Tex. App.—Eastland 2009, no pet.) (“[B]y
      granting a temporary injunction, a trial court does not declare that a
      covenant not to compete is valid.”); EMSL Analytical, Inc. v. Younker, 154
      S.W.3d 693, 695 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2004, no pet.)
      (stating that an appeal of an order granting or denying a temporary
      injunction based on a noncompete covenant does not present for
      appellate review the ultimate question of whether the covenant is
      enforceable under the Covenant Not to Compete Act); Tom James of
      Dall[.], 109 S.W.3d at 882–83.

Hernandez, 2021 WL 520456, at *7; see also Thomas v. A*Med Mgmt., Inc., No. 01-19-

00564-CV, 2020 WL 5269412, at *8 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Sept. 3, 2020,

no pet.) (mem. op.) (stating same standard as Hernandez—that the question of the

validity of a covenant not to compete is deferred until resolution on the merits). We

adhere to our holding in Hernandez that whether a covenant is reasonable should await

the ultimate resolution on the merits.

      In Hernandez, we noted that even though the question of the reasonableness of

a covenant is a question for a later date than the review of a temporary injunction, we

cannot simply ignore the impact of Section 15.50. 2021 WL 520456, at *7–8. We

cited—as does Datascan—LasikPlus of Tex., P.C. v. Mattioli, 418 S.W.3d 210, 216 (Tex.

App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 2013, no pet.). In LasikPlus, our sister court held that it

was not error for the trial court to consider the impact of Section 15.50 in deciding to

deny a temporary injunction. Id. at 217–18. But LasikPlus involved a question

regarding whether a hard-and-fast prerequisite to enforceability of a covenant was

                                            26
present—the requirement found in Section 15.50(b)(2) that a covenant binding a

physician must contain a buyout provision. Id. Here, the issue is not whether a

precondition to enforceability of a covenant is present but whether the covenant is

reasonable. The weight of authority cited in Hernandez shows that the question of

whether a covenant is reasonable is one for a later date so that it can be determined

with a more complete record than would be available in an appeal from the granting

of a temporary injunction. 2021 WL 520456, at *7.

      Also, Datascan does not argue that the covenant would still be unreasonable if

it restricted a narrower scope of activity, i.e., if the FMEs were prohibited from

servicing only customers they serviced while at WIS. Even if the covenant in its

present form is too broad, it could be reformed and enforced by injunction. See Tex.

Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.51.9

      9
       The text of Section 15.51(c) provides,

      If the covenant is found to be ancillary to or part of an otherwise
      enforceable agreement but contains limitations as to time, geographical
      area, or scope of activity to be restrained that are not reasonable and
      impose a greater restraint than is necessary to protect the goodwill or
      other business interest of the promisee, the court shall reform the
      covenant to the extent necessary to cause the limitations contained in the
      covenant as to time, geographical area, and scope of activity to be
      restrained to be reasonable and to impose a restraint that is not greater
      than necessary to protect the goodwill or other business interest of the
      promisee and enforce the covenant as reformed, except that the court
      may not award the promisee damages for a breach of the covenant
      before its reformation and the relief granted to the promisee shall be
      limited to injunctive relief. If the primary purpose of the agreement to
      which the covenant is ancillary is to obligate the promisor to render

                                         27
      We have previously held that if a trial court concludes that a covenant is too

broad, it can narrow the breadth and then issue a temporary-injunction order

restraining violations of the reformed covenant. We set out our reasoning regarding

why a narrowed and reformed covenant could be the basis for a temporary injunction

in Tranter, 2014 WL 1257278, at *6. As we explained in Tranter,

      Because the noncompetition clause may be reformed, the lack of
      geographic restriction is not necessarily fatal to [appellant’s] ability to
      demonstrate a probable right to permanent injunctive relief. See Butnaru,
      84 S.W.3d at 204. Similarly, if the limitations as to time and scope of
      activity were likewise unreasonable, the trial court could reform the
      limitations and enforce the reformed covenant through injunctive relief.
      See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.51(c) (“[T]he court shall reform
      the covenant to the extent necessary . . . and enforce the covenant as
      reformed.”).

             Under the common law, a party seeking an injunction must show
      that without injunctive relief he will suffer irreparable injury for which he
      has no adequate legal remedy. Tom James Co. v. Mendrop, 819 S.W.2d 251,
      252 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth 1991, no writ). However, if a party relies
      on a statute that defines the requirements for injunctive relief, then the
      express statutory language supersedes common law requirements. Butler
      v. Arrow Mirror & Glass, Inc., 51 S.W.3d 787, 795 (Tex. App.—Houston

      personal services, the promisor establishes that the promisee knew at the
      time of the execution of the agreement that the covenant did not contain
      limitations as to time, geographical area, and scope of activity to be
      restrained that were reasonable and the limitations imposed a greater
      restraint than necessary to protect the goodwill or other business interest
      of the promisee, and the promisee sought to enforce the covenant to a
      greater extent than was necessary to protect the goodwill or other
      business interest of the promisee, the court may award the promisor the
      costs, including reasonable attorney’s fees, actually and reasonably
      incurred by the promisor in defending the action to enforce the
      covenant.

Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.51(c).

                                           28
         [1st Dist.] 2001, no pet.). Our sister courts have held that the Covenants
         Not to Compete Act preempt[s] the common law requirements for
         permanent injunctive relief. See Primary Health Physicians, P.A. v. Sarver,
         390 S.W.3d 662, 665 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, no pet.); EMSL
         Analytical, 154 S.W.3d at 695; Cardinal Health Staffing Network, Inc. v.
         Bowen, 106 S.W.3d 230, 239 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2003, no
         pet.); Butler, 51 S.W.3d at 795. We agree. The Act has no requirement
         for a showing of irreparable injury; thus, irreparable injury for which
         there is no adequate legal remedy is not a prerequisite to permanent
         injunctive relief. Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.51(a) (providing for
         “damages, injunctive relief, or both” for a breach of a noncompete by
         the promisor); see also id. § 15.52 (stating that “the procedures and
         remedies . . . provided by Section 15.51 . . . are exclusive and preempt
         any other criteria for enforceability of a covenant not to compete or
         procedures and remedies in an action to enforce a covenant not to
         compete under common law or otherwise”).

               ....

                Therefore, because [appellant] provided evidence that the
         noncompete at issue is ancillary to or part of an otherwise enforceable
         agreement and because the noncompete can be reformed to contain
         reasonable limitations as to time, geographic area, and scope of activity
         that do not impose a greater restraint than is necessary, [appellant]
         established a probable right to recovery on its permanent[-]injunction
         claim. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.50(a); Shoreline Gas, Inc. v.
         McGaughey, No. 13-07-00364-CV, 2008 WL 1747624, at *9 (Tex. App.—
         Corpus Christi[–Edinburg] Apr[.] 17, 2008, no pet.) (mem. op.) (holding
         that employer established its probable right to relief regarding the
         noncompete by showing that the noncompete was ancillary to an
         otherwise enforceable agreement).

Id. at *6–7 (footnote omitted); see also Insight Direct USA, Inc. v. Kelleher, No. 1:17-CV-

252-RP, 2017 WL 1371252, at *2 (W.D. Tex. Apr. 10, 2017) (order) (“Indeed, Texas

courts      have      repeatedly   reformed       non[]compete     covenants     at    the

temporary[-]restraining order or preliminary[-]injunction stage.”); McKissock, LLC v.

                                             29
Martin, 267 F. Supp. 3d 841, 860 (W.D. Tex. 2016) (order) (reforming a noncompete

covenant while granting a preliminary injunction).

         In its petition, as the plaintiff did in Tranter, WIS sought a permanent injunction

to restrain Datascan and Snead. And indeed, Datascan argued to the trial court that

the covenants should be reformed. Datascan carries that argument forward into its

brief, contending in footnote 24 that “if the [c]ourt determines that the [a]greements

are otherwise enforceable and that only the [r]estrictive [c]ovenants should be

reformed, the [t]emporary [i]njunction should be dissolved and the issue should be

remanded to the [t]rial [c]ourt.”

         As noted, we are remanding this case.         This will give the trial court the

opportunity to consider whether reformation is necessary in light of Datascan’s

argument that the restraint on the scope of activity in the covenants is unreasonably

broad.

         We overrule Datascan’s first subissue under its first issue, but we instruct the

trial court to determine on remand whether its injunction order should be modified to

reduce the scope of activity that it currently embraces.

               2.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to
                      conclude that the covenants at issue were unenforceable
                      because they lacked a reasonable limitation on their
                      geographic scope.

         In the second subissue under its first issue, Datascan argues that the covenants

are unreasonable because their geographic scope is unreasonably broad as follows:

                                             30
      The WIS and RGIS [r]estrictive [c]ovenants purport to “include
      anywhere in the United States of America and its territories and
      possessions.” . . . By contrast, the record establishes that the work
      performed by these employees while employed by WIS and/or RGIS
      was necessarily limited to discrete geographic regions. . . . Indeed, even
      their job titles reflect the limited geographic scope of their work (e.g.,
      Area, District, or Regional Managers). Moreover, these FMEs largely
      worked for the single client of Walmart in their distinct markets, further
      making an industrywide ban across the entire United States
      unreasonable.

Again, for the same reasons stated above, it is premature to review this question.

Beyond that, the record contains evidence that the FMEs moved from region to

region to perform inventory services and that inventory work for Walmart was

performed in the same way no matter in which district it was performed. This is

some evidence that permitted the trial court to conclude that—at this preliminary

stage of the litigation—the geographic scope of the covenants was reasonable.10

      We will not rehash our prior discussion of our holding in Hernandez and the

holdings of other cases that the issue of the reasonableness of the covenant is

premature in the review of a temporary-injunction order.

      But even if we were to address the issue, we disagree that the trial court abused

its discretion by rejecting Datascan’s argument—in the context of a temporary

      10
         Datascan notes that the RGIS agreements state that they shall “be governed
by and construed under the laws of the State of Michigan.” In Datascan’s brief,
though it cites Michigan law, it suggests that Michigan law parallels Texas law. As a
general proposition, absent proof that Michigan law differs from Texas law, we
presume the laws of the two states are the same. See Touponse v. Touponse, No. 02-20-
00285-CV, 2021 WL 2753504, at *4 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth July 1, 2021, no pet.)
(mem. op.). Based on Datascan’s representation, we assume that Michigan law would
yield the same analysis as Texas law.

                                         31
injunction—that the covenants had an unreasonably broad geographic sweep. To

support its argument, Datascan cites authority that states the proposition that

“[g]enerally, a reasonable area for purposes of a covenant not to compete is

considered to be the territory in which the employee worked while in the employment

of his employer.” See Butler, 51 S.W.3d at 793. That general rule, however, is not

inflexible.   For example, WIS cites authority that recognizes there may be

justifications for a geographic restriction broader than simply the area where an

employee previously worked:

       [C]ourts will uphold a national or global covenant whose scope exceeds
       an employee’s territory when the scope is justified by the business
       interest underlying the covenant. See, e.g., Daily Instruments Corp. . . . , 998
       F. Supp. 2d [at] 567–68 . . . (upholding a covenant extending to every
       country in which the employer did business where the global customer
       base was “very narrow” and the high-level employee had access to
       confidential information about customers and projects outside his
       territory).

Accruent, LLC v. Short, No. 1:17-CV-858-RP, 2018 WL 297614, at *4 (W.D. Tex.

Jan. 4, 2018) (order).

       WIS offers a justification for the nationwide geographic restriction by

highlighting how the FMEs moved from district to district:

       Here, WIS presented evidence that it conducts inventory services all
       over the country, and the FMEs received extensive confidential
       information, making them a valuable asset to a competitor anywhere
       WIS operates—regardless of where the employee was based. . . . The
       reasonableness of the nationwide restrictive covenants is especially
       evident given that Datascan recruited WIS management employees to
       move across the country to perform the same inventory[-]services work

                                             32
      they performed for WIS for the same nationwide customers[,] such as
      Walmart.

Applying our deferential standard of review in the temporary-injunction context, this

is some evidence that supports the trial court’s discretion in concluding that WIS had

a probable right to recovery even though the covenants had a broad geographic

sweep.

      And not only is there evidence that the FMEs moved from district to district,

but also the nature of the Walmart inventory process supports the conclusion that the

trial court did not abuse its discretion. Apparently, how a Walmart inventory is

performed does not vary from district to district. The crew field manual that was

introduced by WIS set procedures for a Walmart inventory—no matter where it was

performed. Indeed, evidence from witnesses who testified on both sides confirmed

the standardized nature of a Walmart inventory and the duties of those who managed

the audits. A witness who testified on behalf of WIS described the duties of a district

manager and noted that the duties did not vary depending on what part of the country

the district manager was in. This witness also testified that there was no difference

between working on the Walmart team in one state and working on a Walmart team

in another state. One of the FMEs testified that he had moved from a territory in

Pennsylvania to one in Florida. Though he received training on Datascan’s software,

he received no training “on Walmart” because he already knew it. Again, this is some

evidence that WIS’s business interests warranted a broader protection than simply

                                          33
restricting former employees from working in the area where they had been employed

by WIS.

      We overrule Datascan’s second subissue under its first issue.

             3.    The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to
                   conclude that the WIS agreements were not supported by
                   consideration.

      As noted above, certain of the FMEs were required to sign agreements with

WIS after they were already employed by it. Datascan argues in its third subissue

under its first issue that the agreements were not supported by consideration and thus

are void. WIS responds that consideration exists when an employee is provided

confidential information after execution of an agreement. The record in this appeal

contains evidence that WIS withheld certain confidential information until after the

complained-of employees signed the WIS agreement. As we have set forth above, we

operate under a highly deferential standard of review when reviewing the grant of a

temporary injunction. Under this standard, there is some evidence of consideration.

      The Tyler Court of Appeals has provided a comprehensive description of when

the question of consideration may be a legal or factual question and how the question

of consideration impacts the enforceability of a covenant not to compete:

      The enforceability of a covenant[-]not[-]to[-]compete agreement is a
      question of law. Powerhouse Prods., Inc. v. Scott, 260 S.W.3d 693, 696 (Tex.
      App.—Dallas 2008, no pet.); see also Gorman v. CCS Midstream Servs.,
      L.L.C., No. 12-09-00204-CV, 2011 WL 1642624, at *3 (Tex. App.—
      Tyler 2011, no pet.) (mem. op.). Likewise, what constitutes sufficient
      consideration for a contract is generally a question of law[] but can be a
      question of fact. Roark v. Stallworth Oil [&] Gas, Inc., 813 S.W.2d 492,

                                          34
496 (Tex. 1991) (holding factual questions remained on consideration
issue in summary[-]judgment case due to failure to produce conclusive
proof); Burges v. Mosley, 304 S.W.3d 623, 629 (Tex. App.—Tyler 2010, no
pet.) (question of law).

       A covenant not to compete is enforceable if it is (1) ancillary to or
part of an otherwise enforceable agreement at the time the agreement is
made and (2) reasonable, not imposing a greater restraint than is
necessary to protect the goodwill or other business interest of the
employer. See Tex. Bus. & Com. Code Ann. § 15.50(a) . . . . The first
element can be broken down into two inquiries: (1) whether there is an
“otherwise enforceable agreement,” and (2) whether the covenant not to
compete is “ancillary to or part of” that agreement at the time the
otherwise enforceable agreement was made. See Mann Frankfort[ Stein &
Lipp Advisors, Inc. v. Fielding], 289 S.W.3d [844,] 849[ (Tex. 2009)].

       With regard to the first inquiry, “otherwise enforceable
agreements” can emanate from at-will employment so long as the
consideration for any promise is not illusory. Id. Moreover, a unilateral
contract formed when an employer performs a promise that was illusory
when the contract was formed can satisfy the requirements of the
statute. See Alex Sheshunoff Mgmt. Servs., L.P. v. Johnson, 209 S.W.3d 644,
651 (Tex. 2006). Thus, when an employer makes an illusory promise of
consideration and[] later[] performs in accord with the promise, the
consideration is no longer illusory. See id. Additionally, even in the
absence of an express promise to provide confidential information,
when the nature of the employee’s work requires confidential
information to be provided for him to perform the work, the employer
impliedly promises the information will be provided. See Mann Frankfort,
289 S.W.3d at 850.

       Concerning the second inquiry, for a covenant not to compete to
be “ancillary to or part of” an otherwise enforceable agreement, the
employer must establish both that (a) the consideration given by the
employer in the agreement is reasonably related to an interest worthy of
protection and (b) the covenant not to compete was designed to enforce
the employee’s consideration or return promise in the agreement. See
Marsh USA Inc. v. Cook, 354 S.W.3d 764, 775 (Tex. 2011) [(op. on reh’g)].
“The covenant cannot be a stand-alone promise from the employee
lacking any new consideration from the employer.” Sheshunoff, 209
S.W.3d at 651. The consideration from the employer “must give rise to

                                    35
       the employer’s interest in restraining the employee from competing.” Id.
       at 648–49. Business goodwill, confidential or proprietary information,
       trade secrets, customer information, and specialized training are
       examples of interests that can be, in appropriate circumstances, worthy
       of protection by a covenant not to compete. See, e.g., Marsh USA Inc.,
       354 S.W.3d at 777; Sheshunoff, 209 S.W.3d at 651; Neurodiagnostic Tex,
       L.L.C. v. Pierce, 506 S.W.3d 153, 163–64 (Tex. App.—Tyler 2016, no
       pet.) [(op. on reh’g)].

PetroChoice Holdings, LLC v. Pearce, No. 12-20-00106-CV, 2021 WL 126591, at *3–4

(Tex. App.—Tyler 2021, no pet.) (mem. op.). Further, we have held that “[t]he

consideration requirement was satisfied by [the employer’s] performance in disclosing

its confidential information to [the employee] in exchange for [the employee’s]

promise to keep that information confidential.” Tranter, 2014 WL 1257278, at *5.

       Each of the WIS agreements provided that “[i]n consideration of employment,

continued employment, or promotion (as applicable) and disclosure of the Confidential Information (as

defined below) by the Company to Employee, WIS and Employee have agreed as follows[.]”

Except for one of the FMEs who signed the WIS agreements, the agreements were

signed by the FMEs in June 2022. WIS offered testimony that it had ceased providing

certain financial information to District Managers in May 2021 while it integrated its

financial systems, presumably after the acquisition of RGIS. The integrated financial

information was not released until July 2022. WIS Executive Vice President of

National Accounts explained how the release of the integrated financial information

coincided with the execution of the WIS agreements as follows:

                                                 36
      Q. (By [WIS’s counsel]) . . . [W]e’ve seen several of these agreements --
      and Ms. Large [(one of the FMEs)] is an example -- that were signed in
      and around June of 2022, is that right?

            A. Yes.

            Q. Can you tell the [c]ourt why these agreements were signed in
      or around June of 2022?

             A. There’s two pieces to that. The first piece was since the
      integration -- or the acquisition in May of 2021, we stopped producing
      or creating financial statements down at the office level until we got
      further along into the integration and felt comfortable with, throughout
      the integration process, which management teams we’d be keeping and
      in what roles they would be functioning in.

             In July of 2022, we were prepared to release these financial
      report[s] by individual office to these managers. Before that information
      was distributed, I wanted to be sure [of] two things. One, as part of that
      rollout, we had valid noncompetes and confidentiality agreements signed
      by everybody in place. And then, two, we needed to have those for the
      integration anyway. So I asked HR to . . . make that an undertaking.[11]

One FME refused to sign the WIS agreement, but that FME had been an employee of

RGIS and had what WIS considered a valid noncompete/confidentiality agreement

on file, i.e., an agreement executed between the employee and RGIS.

      Datascan’s attack on the consideration issue is narrow:         “Here, the WIS

[a]greements were not accompanied by consideration. WIS [a]greements were entered

into after FMEs were employed as managers and after they were provided WIS

Confidential Information. There is no evidence that WIS [a]greements were signed in

connection with promotions, raises, or other changes to employment.” [Briefing

       Two FMEs who signed the agreements in June 2022 were District Managers,
      11

and one was a Regional Manager.

                                         37
reference omitted.] Datascan does not challenge the principle that the provision of

additional confidential information may serve as consideration but claims “upon

inspection, WIS’s citations to the record do not support that WIS Confidential

Information was shared with FMEs.”           Yet Datascan does not explain why the

evidence that we have quoted does not create a question of fact regarding whether

consideration was provided and would not be sufficient—in the highly deferential

setting in which we review the trial court’s injunction order—to support the exercise

of the court’s discretion to decide at this preliminary point in the litigation that the

WIS agreements were supported by consideration.

      Because we hold that the evidence supports the trial court’s decision, we

overrule Datascan’s third subissue under its first issue.

             4.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to
                    conclude that the WIS agreements “do not protect an
                    interest worthy of protection.”

      Datascan argues in the fifth subissue under its first issue that the trial court

should have inferred that the noncompete agreements that WIS seeks to enforce do

not protect an interest worthy of protection because WIS did not sue another

company that hired an FME. Datascan asks us to overturn the injunction because the

trial court did not draw the inference that Datascan prefers. Again, to do so would

transgress the deference that we must show in reviewing the trial court’s decision to

grant a temporary injunction.

                                            38
      Rather than try to summarize Datascan’s argument, we quote the one

paragraph from its opening brief that contains the entirety of the argument:

      Here, WIS’s actions related to Large—who went to work for OSL,
      another competitor of WIS—establish[] that the information WIS
      sought to protect through the WIS [a]greements is not an interest
      worthy of protection. Specifically, WIS is well-aware that Large is
      working for OSL[,] but WIS has not sought to protect the information
      that Large purportedly has (which is the same purported confidential
      information that each of the FMEs who work for Datascan allegedly
      ha[s]). WIS has thus permitted the confidential information it seeks to
      protect here to be shared with a different competitor. As a result, the
      information is not an interest worthy of protection and thus cannot
      form the basis for consideration of the WIS [r]estrictive [c]ovenants. See
      Wharton [Physician Servs., P.A. v. Signature Gulf Coast Hosp., L.P., No. 13-
      14-00437-CV], 2016 WL 192069, at *4 [(Tex. App.—Corpus Christi–
      Edinburg Jan. 14, 2016, no pet.) (mem. op.)] (finding that employer
      failed to establish interest worthy of protection necessary for
      non[]compete when the knowledge sought to be protected could be
      shared with a competing corporation). Accordingly, the WIS [r]estrictive
      [c]ovenants are unenforceable. [Footnote and record reference omitted.]

Datascan’s reply brief explains the inference that it thought the trial court should have

drawn from WIS’s inaction:

      WIS contends that it acted diligently with respect to [Snead’s husband]
      and Large when they went to work for competitors PICS and OSL,
      respectively, by sending cease-and-desist letters. But the fact remains that it
      did not sue and showed no urgency in pursuing its alleged rights until it saw an
      opportunity to bring this litigation against Datascan, its competitor who won part of
      Walmart’s work through a fair RFP process months before it hired any FMEs.
      Coupled with the fact that the noncompete [a]greements were sprung on FMEs in the
      midst of an RFP process for Walmart and only after WIS realized that it may lose
      Walmart work, and [the WIS executive’s] concession that WIS cares only about
      information in the heads of FMEs, it becomes clear that WIS’s chief concern was
      losing business—not confidential information—to competitors. [Brief and record
      references omitted.] [Emphasis added.]

                                               39
      As signaled by the quote from Datascan’s reply brief, WIS notes that it sent a

cease-and-desist letter to both OSL and Large. It also argues that it pleaded and

presented evidence that Datascan and OSL were working jointly to tortiously interfere

with the FMEs’ agreements.

      In essence, Datascan’s argument is that although WIS has taken actions to

challenge OSL’s and Large’s use of WIS’s confidential information, it must be inferred

that the failure to sue OSL or Large demonstrates that WIS does not truly consider its

information to be confidential. Datascan argues that this inference is required even

though other reasons may justify WIS’s not taking the next step of suing OSL.

Datascan also ignores an opposite inference that can be drawn from WIS’s suit against

it: WIS believes that the information is confidential and is willing to expend time and

attorney’s fees to protect it. Based on the thin record produced at the temporary-

injunction hearing and the multiple conflicting inferences that can be drawn from that

record, we will not hold that the trial court was bound to pick only the one that

supports Datascan’s position out of the range of possible conclusions that could be

drawn from the temporary-injunction record or that may be drawn when a full record

is developed.

      Nor does the authority that Datascan cites support its argument.            That

authority holds that information is not worthy of protection unless it “‘could not

readily be identified by someone outside [the employer’s] employ, . . . carried some

competitive advantage,’ or . . . outside of the six-month period required under the

                                          40
non-compete clause, . . . could not be shared with a competing corporation.” Wharton

Physician Servs., 2016 WL 192069, at *4. Further, in Wharton, “the non[]compete clause

was not accompanied by any provision requesting non[]disclosure of this ‘confidential

and proprietary information.’” Id. WIS certainly argues that the information could

not be readily identified by a third party and relies on agreements that prohibit the

disclosure of confidential information. How Wharton’s holding supports Datascan’s

present argument is unclear.

       Because the trial court did not abuse its discretion by inferring that the WIS

agreements insulate an interest worthy of protection, we overrule Datascan’s fifth

subissue.

              5.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to
                     conclude that the WIS agreements were invalid because they
                     were not executed by WIS.

       The WIS agreements introduced into evidence were not executed by WIS, and

WIS offered no evidence that copies existed that it had signed. Datascan argues in its

fourth subissue under its first issue that WIS’s failure to sign the agreements renders

them invalid primarily because of a provision in the agreements that indicates that

without execution, the agreements are not binding. The argument assumes that

without both parties’ signature there is no agreement, but that argument ignores that

the provision states that a party who signs is bound.

       The WIS agreements each contain the following provision: “Authority to

Execute: Each party warrants and represents to the other party that this [a]greement will be

                                            41
binding upon it once executed, and that the individual executing this document is

authorized or has been empowered to do so.”            [Emphasis added.]     Datascan’s

argument turns on its interpretation of this phrase as creating a condition precedent

that both parties must sign the agreement before it is binding. WIS responds with an

argument that “the [a]greements contain no language explicitly or unambiguously

requiring signatures as a condition of mutual assent.” WIS then argues that its

conduct manifested its assent to the agreements, specifically through its conduct of

continuing to employ the FMEs who had signed the agreement and the sharing of

confidential information with them.

       As a starting point,

       [C]ontracts require mutual assent, which, in the case of a written
       contract, is generally evidenced by the signatures of the parties and
       delivery with the intent to bind. Baylor Univ. v. Sonnichsen, 221 S.W.3d
       632, 635 (Tex. 2007). “But while signature and delivery are often
       evidence of the mutual assent required for a contract, they are not
       essential.” Phillips v. Carlton Energy Grp., LLC, 475 S.W.3d 265, 277 (Tex.
       2015).

McGehee v. Endeavor Acquisitions, LLC, 603 S.W.3d 515, 522 (Tex. App.—El Paso 2020,

no pet.).

       In addressing this question that Datascan raises, we will follow the analytical

framework set forth by the El Paso Court of Appeals:

       •     “[T]he absence of a party’s signature does not necessarily destroy
             an otherwise valid contract and is not dispositive of the question
             of whether the parties intended to be bound by the terms of a
             contract.”

                                           42
      •      “[W]hen the terms of the contract make it clear that a signature is
             required, a party’s failure to sign the agreement will render the
             agreement unenforceable.”

      •      “Conversely, when there is no evidence in the record to suggest
             that the parties intended for a signature to be a condition
             precedent to the signing of an agreement, then a party’s failure to
             sign the agreement does not render the agreement unenforceable,
             as long as it appears that the parties otherwise gave their consent
             to the terms of the agreement.”

      •      “[A] parties’ [sic] intent to be bound by a contract may be
             evidenced by its conduct at the time a contract is drafted and by
             its subsequent conduct reflecting that it was acting in accordance
             with the terms of the contract.”

Id. at 522–23 (quoting Wright v. Hernandez, 469 S.W.3d 744, 757–58, 760 (Tex. App.—

El Paso 2015, no pet.)).

      In its argument, Datascan does not challenge the principles that the absence of

a signature does not necessarily destroy the existence of a contract and that conduct

may bind a party to the contract. Instead, its argument focuses on the execution

provision that we quoted as a clear indication that WIS’s signature is required as a

condition precedent to the contract’s formation. The El Paso Court of Appeals has

previously cataloged a number of cases that interpreted a signature provision as

creating a condition precedent to the existence of a contract:

      [W]hen the terms of the contract make it clear that a signature is
      required, a party’s failure to sign the agreement will render the agreement
      unenforceable. See Simmons & Simmons Constr. Co. v. Rea, . . . 286 S.W.2d
      415, 418–19 ([Tex.] 1955) (the evidence did not support a jury’s verdict
      enforcing a contract where one of the parties had not signed the
      agreement, the contract contained a signature block; the contract itself

                                          43
      stated that the parties’ signatures had to be notarized, and the contract
      was given to one of the part[ies] with directions to sign it and return to
      the other party for signing); Lujan v. Alorica, 445 S.W.3d 443, 448–49
      (Tex. App.—El Paso 2014, no pet.) (when a contract expressly requires a
      signature prior to it[s] becoming binding, the existence of the instrument
      is destroyed by the other party’s failure to sign the instrument); W. Tex[.]
      Hosp[.], Inc. v. Enercon Int’l, Inc., No. 07-09-0213-CV, 2010 WL 3417845,
      at *5 (Tex. App.—Amarillo Aug. 31, 2010, no pet.) [(mem. op.)]
      (agreement expressly required the signature of both parties and stated
      that it would be “binding upon all parties the date [appellee] dates and
      signs the duplicate originals, which date shall be the ‘execution date of
      Agreement.’”).

Wright, 469 S.W.3d at 758.

      The execution provision in the WIS agreements presents us with a quandary:

what is the effect of a provision that states it is binding once executed? The operative

phrase provides that “[e]ach party warrants and represents to the other party that this

[a]greement will be binding upon it once executed.” Does that mean both parties

must execute it before it binds both? Does it mean that once a party signs, in this

case the FMEs, the parties are bound? Is the provision so clear that once a party

indicates its assent to the agreement by signing it, the other party cannot show its

assent by performance?

      Again, we are at a preliminary stage of this proceeding in our review of the

injunction. When faced with an ambiguous document, the trial court is presented

with a bona fide dispute that permits it to exercise its discretion with respect to the

issuance of a temporary injunction. Vaughn, 288 S.W.3d at 938 (holding that due to a

disagreement about the construction of a document, the trial court did not abuse its

                                          44
discretion by granting a temporary injunction); City of Houston v. Todd, 41 S.W.3d 289,

302–03 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2001, pets. denied) (Brister, J., dissenting on

reh’g) (stating that “[w]hen the issuance of a temporary injunction turns on provisions

that must be construed rather than on clear language, a trial court does not abuse its

discretion in either granting or denying the relief” and noting that “[a] substantial

difference of opinion as to the proper construction of documents is alone sufficient to

justify a temporary injunction”); 183/620 Grp. Joint Venture v. SPF Joint Venture, 765

S.W.2d 901, 904 (Tex. App.—Austin 1989, writ dism’d w.o.j.) (holding that when a

bona fide dispute existed as to the construction of contract documents, the trial court

reasonably concluded that a party had shown a probable right of recovery).

Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the injunction

despite the absence of WIS’s signatures from the WIS agreements.

      We overrule Datascan’s fourth subissue under its first issue.

             6.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by failing to
                    conclude that agreements executed between certain FMEs
                    and RGIS could not be a basis for WIS’s tortious-
                    interference claim.

      As noted above, certain FMEs did not execute agreements with WIS but had

executed agreements with RGIS before it was acquired by WIS. Datascan argues in

the sixth subissue under its first issue that we should reject WIS’s claim that the RGIS

agreements had provisions that transferred their protections to WIS as a result of the

acquisition. Specifically, Datascan argues that the protections of the agreements could

                                          45
not pass to WIS unless the agreements were explicitly modified to transfer the

protections to WIS and that modification did not occur. Based on the provisions of

the RGIS agreements providing protection to RGIS’s successors, we conclude that

the trial court did not abuse its discretion by concluding that they supported a

probable right to recovery by WIS.

      Datascan highlights that three of the FMEs never signed an agreement

containing a restrictive covenant or a confidentiality agreement with WIS. Instead,

the only agreement that they had signed was between themselves and RGIS.

      WIS does not dispute that the FMEs in question entered into no agreement

with WIS. Instead, WIS highlights provisions in the RGIS agreement that it argues

gave it the benefit of the agreements. Specifically, WIS notes that two paragraphs of

the RGIS agreement provide as follows:

      10. Assignability. This Agreement is personal to Employee[] and may
      not be assigned or delegated to any other party by Employee. This
      Agreement may and shall be assigned or transferred to any successor of
      RGIS, and any such successor shall be deemed substituted for all
      purposes of RGIS under the terms of this Agreement. As used in this
      Agreement, the term “successor” shall mean any person, firm,
      corporation[,] or business entity [that] at any time, whether by merger,
      purchase[,] or otherwise, acquires all or substantially all of the assets or
      the business of the Company.

            11. Benefit. This Agreement shall be binding upon and inure to
      the benefit of RGIS and its successors and permitted assigns, and
      Employee.

                                          46
       Also, there is no dispute that WIS now owns the business of RGIS. 12 And

WIS’s Executive Vice President of National Accounts testified that after the

acquisition, the RGIS employees who had worked on Walmart inventories had moved

into his reporting structure:

       Q. And what happened to -- if anything, to the people who were at
       RGIS who [had] worked on Walmart inventory business?

            A.      Their reporting structure was re-aligned[,] and they
       immediately reported to me.

              Q. Okay. So since May of 2021, the folks that were at RGIS
       working on Walmart inventory services and now are working with WIS
       report to you, is that correct?

              A. Yes.

       Other than a passing reference in a footnote, Datascan does not challenge that

an assignment occurred, nor does it parse the language that “[t]his [a]greement may

and shall be assigned or transferred to any successor of RGIS, and any such successor

shall be deemed substituted for all purposes of RGIS under the terms of this

[a]greement.” Nor does Datascan’s reply brief challenge WIS’s cited authority, which

holds that the covenants contained in the agreements passed automatically; for

example, authority that states:

       12
         Exactly when the acquisition occurred is not clear from the record. A
purchase-and-sale agreement is dated May 20, 2021. A contribution agreement is
dated January 1, 2023. A WIS witness testified that the plaintiff WIS entity owns “the
business of RGIS” and that happened in “May of 2021” and later said, “WIS that is
the plaintiff here was assigned the ownership of RGIS January 1st” 2023.

                                         47
      [Defendant] argues that he did not consent to an assignment, and that
      there is no proof that the Consent Decree was ever assigned. Covenants
      not to compete are assignable. Thames v. Rotary Eng’g Co., 315 S.W.2d
      589, 590 (Tex. . . . App.[—El Paso] 1958, writ ref’d n.r.e.). By its
      acquisition of [plaintiff], Exide [(another company operating in the same
      line of business)] acquired [plaintiff’s] right to enforce the Consent
      Decree. An express assignment to Exide is unnecessary. “Upon a
      subsequent sale of a business, such covenant will pass as an incident of
      the business even though not expressly assigned.” Wells v. . . . Powers,
      354 S.W.2d 651, 654 (Tex. . . . App.[—Dallas] 1962, no writ); Williams v.
      Powell Elec. Mf[g]. Co[.], 508 S.W.2d 665, 667 (Tex. . . . App.[—Houston
      [14th Dist.]] 1974, no writ) (express assignment of covenant not to
      compete unnecessary between a company and its wholly[ ]owned
      subsidiary); Abramov v. Royal Dall[.], Inc., 536 S.W.2d 388, 390 (Tex. . . .
      App.[—Dallas] 1976, no writ) (no need for an express assignment of a
      covenant not to compete between successors in interest). [Defendant]
      consented to assignment of [plaintiff’s] rights in the Consent Decree
      itself. No further consent was required. See [Tex. Shop] Towel[, Inc.] v.
      Haire, 246 S.W.2d 482, 484 (Tex. . . . App.[—San Antonio] 1952, no
      writ) (where an employee makes a contract restricting his right to
      compete and provides further that the contract is assignable, the
      employer may assign the contract). Thames is not to the contrary.
      Although in Thames the court analyzed whether the employee consented
      to the assignment by continuing to work for the employer, see 315
      S.W.2d at 591, there is nothing in the court’s decision to indicate that
      there was an assignability provision in the contract.

Int’l Power Machs. Corp. v. Power Specialists, Inc., No. 3:91-CV-0643-D, 1996 WL 722074,

at *1, *3 (N.D. Tex. Dec. 6, 1996) (mem. op. and order) (footnote omitted).

      Indeed, a more recent federal case dealt with a situation somewhat analogous to

the instant one.   Visual Edge IT, Inc. v. Vaughan, No. 4:20-CV-04220, 2022 WL

9392564 (S.D. Tex. Oct. 13, 2020) (mem. and order). Visual Edge dealt with the sale

of one company to another. Id. at *1. Two employees had executed nondisclosure

and noncompete agreements with the purchased company and refused to execute new

                                          48
ones with the buyer. Id. Both began working for a competitor of the buyer. Id. The

buyer sued the former employees and their new employer. Id. at *2. When sued for

breach of contract for “providing confidential information to [their new employer]

and soliciting [the buyer’s] employees and customers to the competitor company,” the

employees argued that their contracts were personal-services contracts that were not

assignable. Id.

      The federal court initially noted that “Texas law presumes contracts are freely

assignable.” Id. at *3 (citing Dittman v. Model Baking Co., 271 S.W. 75, 77 (Tex.

Comm’n App. 1925, judgm’t adopted)). Visual Edge then went on to catalog a host of

cases that concluded covenants not to compete were assignable:

      Texas lower courts have repeatedly found that restrictive covenants are
      not themselves personal[-]service contracts. See, e.g., TPS Freight
      Distrib[s.], Inc. v. Tex[.] Com. Bank-Dall[.], 788 S.W.2d 456, 459 (Tex.
      App.[—Fort          Worth]    1990[,     writ    denied])   (distinguishing
      personal[-]service contracts from those in which the contractor agreed to
      “refrain from doing something”); Thames . . . , 315 S.W.2d [at] 590 . . .
      (“[W]e do not find any inhibition against the assignment or transfer of
      this type of covenant or agreement. These are not agreements to work[]
      but are restrictive agreements promising not to compete. It has been
      held that such are transferrable or assignable as assets.”); see also In re
      Wofford, 608 B.R. 494, 497 (Bankr. E.D. Tex. 2019) (“The former
      requires affirmative actions by the employee, whereas the latter requires
      only that they refrain from certain actions.”)[.] Courts beyond Texas
      also recognize this distinction. See, e.g., Symphony Diagnostic Servs. No. 1
      Inc. v. Greenbaum, 828 F.3d 643, 647 (8th Cir. 2016) (“[T]he fact that [the
      parties] signed the non[]compete and confidentiality agreements in
      consideration for continued employment did not transform those
      agreements into personal[-]services contracts[] because the agreements
      imposed no obligation on them to take any affirmative action.”); Managed
      Health Care Assocs., Inc. v. Kethan, 209 F.3d 923, 929 (6th Cir. 2000) . . .
      (“A personal[-]services contract, however, requires that one of the

                                          49
      parties be bound to render personal services.               In contrast, a
      noncompetition clause only requires that one of the parties abstain from
      certain activities.” [(internal citation omitted)]); In re Andrews, 80 F.3d
      906, 912 (4th Cir. 1996) (“Although the Thirteenth Amendment
      prohibits a court from specifically enforcing a personal[-]service
      contract, an agreement not to compete is specifically enforceable if it is
      reasonable.”).

Id. The opinion concluded that the covenants it reviewed were assignable. 13

      Datascan tries to thwart any effect of the assignment of the covenants not by

arguing that the covenants were not assignable or actually assigned but that “in order

for the RGIS [a]greements to protect WIS and WIS’s confidential information or [to]

prevent FMEs from competing with WIS, the RGIS [a]greements would need to be

modified.” One may fairly ask: if the agreements had to explicitly be modified, then

what is the purpose of the provision in the agreements stating that they could be

assigned? This is a point made by WIS in its brief in response to Datascan’s argument:

      [Datascan’s] argument that WIS cannot enforce the [a]greements
      because it did not modify them is flat wrong. As an initial matter, the
      contention that WIS can only prevent the FMEs from competing with
      RGIS, not WIS, is nonsensical given the acquisition. Moreover, this
      interpretation would render the assignability provision in the
      [a]greements meaningless—violating a well-established contract principle
      to give effect to the entire agreement. Coker v. Coker, 650 S.W.2d 391,
      393 (Tex. 1983). [Brief reference omitted.]

And Datascan’s argument ignores the very terms of the assignment provision that

“[t]his [a]greement may and shall be assigned or transferred to any successor of RGIS,

      13
         Visual Edge distinguished an opinion from the Tyler Court of Appeals that
involved a contract that integrated personal services and covenants. 2022 WL 9392564,
at *4 (discussing Intertek Asset Integrity Mgmt., Inc. v. Dirksen, No. 12-20-00060-CV, 2021
WL 1047055, at *6 (Tex. App.—Tyler Mar. 18, 2021, no pet.) (mem. op.)).

                                            50
and any such successor shall be deemed substituted for all purposes of RGIS under

the terms of this [a]greement.” [Emphasis added.] If WIS as successor is substituted

for all purposes, why is there a need to modify the agreements to substitute WIS as

the beneficiary of the agreements?

      At this preliminary stage, we conclude that the trial court did not abuse its

discretion by concluding that WIS has a probable right of recovery against Datascan

for tortious interference of certain of the agreements that employees signed with

RGIS that were made applicable to WIS as RGIS’s successor.14

      We overrule Datascan’s sixth subissue of its first issue.

      Except to the extent that we remand this matter to the trial court for it to

consider whether the scope of activity in the covenants referenced in the injunction

order should be modified, we overrule Datascan’s first issue.

      C.     Datascan argues in its second issue that the trial court abused its
             discretion by issuing its injunction order because WIS “failed to
             produce evidence on a probable right to relief on its claims.” WIS
             offered sufficient proof to support the trial court’s decision.

      Datascan’s second issue is a catalog of reasons why it contends that WIS failed

to establish a probable right to recovery, including an absence of proof that

(1) Datascan used WIS’s protectable information, (2) the FMEs breached their

fiduciary duties, and (3) WIS suffered actual damages as a result of Datascan’s

      14
        We note that the RGIS agreement with Snead’s husband is of a different form
than the other two RGIS agreements in the record and contains a stipulation that it is
a personal-employment contract.

                                          51
interference with WIS’s contract with Walmart. We overrule the first two subissues

and do not reach the third.

               1.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the
                      injunction order because WIS failed to offer proof that
                      Datascan used any of WIS’s protectable information.

       Datascan’s first subissue under its second issue is that WIS has nothing

confidential to protect, that WIS conceded this fact by acknowledging that the only

information that the FMEs had was what they carried in their heads, and that the

record establishes that Datascan “neither has, nor wants” WIS’s confidential

information because Datascan used its own technology and Walmart’s specifications

in developing its Walmart inventory process. WIS counters that it has established that

it indeed has confidential information in the form of “its financial information,

employee information, its software and internal reports, and the rates charged by

WIS” and in the “unique and specialized processes and procedures on the Walmart

account.” The question is a close one, but there is enough in the record to sustain the

trial court’s exercise of its discretion. 15

        We also quote the specific testimony that Datascan cites to support certain of
       15

the statements in its brief. Datascan states that the fact that there is an absence of
evidence that the FMEs took anything with them “was confirmed by Jillian Sanders, a
WIS Regional Director, who testified [that] she has no evidence that any FME has any
WIS confidential information other than general knowledge and skills obtained on the
job.” The testimony cited in support of this conclusion is not as blanket of a
concession as Datascan portrays it to be:

       Q. Do you have any evidence that the WIS employees who now work
       for Datascan have WIS confidential information with them?

                                               52
      For all the noise in the briefing, this subissue comes down to one question: Is

it arguable that WIS created confidential processes in conducting Walmart inventories,

or are the FMEs simply using general knowledge and skills that are not protectable as

confidential information? In our initial summary, we have already listed evidence,

such as the manual that WIS created to govern Walmart workflow. We have also

outlined the testimony that WIS offered regarding how Walmart had told it what it

             A. I don’t have any proof that they have confidential information
      per se. I have not spoke[n] to any of these people. But I do know that
      the knowledge that they gained at WIS is all confidential.

             Q. All of it?

            A. Well, the things that we share with our employees are
      confidential.

       Next, Datascan asserts that “[WIS Executive Vice President of National
Accounts] further testified that WIS did not even have evidence that Datascan has
received or used WIS’s purported confidential information contained in the FME[s’]
heads.” The testimony cited to support this statement is as follows:

      Q. Okay. You don’t have any evidence that Datascan has anything of
      yours other than what is in the former manager[s’] head[s]; isn’t that
      true?

             A. Yes.

            Q. And you don’t know if those former managers are using
      what’s in their head[s] for Datascan?

             A. I believe they are.

             Q. But you don’t know that; you don’t have evidence that they
      are?

             A. Yes. [Emphasis added.]

                                         53
wanted accomplished but had left it to WIS to figure out the process. WIS’s brief

goes on to emphasize various testimony:

      •     Walmart has a different inventory process than any other retailer, and it

            has “a very sophisticated process with very rigid parameters and

            expectations and, from a technological standpoint, more advanced than

            any other retailer’s inventory program.”

      •     WIS has continuously fine tuned the Walmart inventory process:

            Well, I mentioned earlier that Walmart tells you what to do but
            not how to do it. So what we do with our management team and
            we’ve established over years of trial and error and on-hand
            experience is [the most] efficient process possible to execute the
            inventory under the parameters that Walmart has given us,
            exceeding even their best expectations in terms of scoring.

                   And this is achieved through numerous steps including
            resource allocation, including internal reporting, all these things
            that are critical to the execution of the inventory.

      •     Specialized training was required for Walmart inventories:

            Q. Could you please describe your transition when you joined the
            Walmart team from the . . . previous team you worked on?

                   A. Yes. When I joined the Walmart team, I didn’t have
            any experience in working in Walmart. I had never worked with
            that account before. So there was a lot of specific training that
            was needed to, you know, get me prepared to run my team.

                   Q. And how long did that training last?

                  A. The training last[ed], to make me comfortable, for
            about eight weeks before I was left alone.

                                          54
             Q. And did someone with Walmart experience train you?

             A. Yes.

           Q. If you had not had someone with Walmart experience
    training you, . . . how do you believe your training would have
    gone?

           A. It would have been very difficult. There’s a lot of very
    specific and specialized training for Walmart in regards to how
    we, you know, just run the entire process.

•   The employees were trained with respect to the Walmart app process.

•   The manual, which has been described, was compiled:

    Q. Did you have a hand in preparing Exhibit 56 [the manual]?

             A. Yes, I did.

             Q. Could you please describe that?

             A. Yes.

            [W]hen [the] app rolled out, we all got together, myself and
    my other partners that are regionals as well as Darryl Herman
    [(WIS Vice President of Operations for Walmart)], and we sat
    down and went through everything and put this manual together
    as far as what we wanted our training to look like, how we wanted
    to run our very unique process that we have as far as getting
    through our inventories with the flows and the timelines. But,
    yes, we all had a hand in creating this.

           Q. About how long would you say it took you to develop
    the information contained in Exhibit 56?

             A. We sat down for a week and we put this together.

             Q. What -- when did you start working on this process
    first?

                                  55
           A. Oh, goodness. Well, this was after I became a regional,
    which was in July . . . 2019. And this would have happened -- we
    did this at the end of 2019 prior to going into our new season in
    2020.

          Q. And then you would revise it as needed?

          A. Yes, we would revise it annually.

•   WIS takes various actions to maintain its ACE score, which is the

    grading system that Walmart uses:

    Q. And does that come from Walmart or is there any specific
    WIS-specialized knowledge that you have regarding ACE?

           A. It does come from Walmart. But the difference[] . . . is
    that with this manual and . . . the training that we do with our
    crews, it helps us to improve our efficiency.

           So whether that’s through staffing, you know, more
    training, you know, getting out of stores on time, all those
    different things, we . . . strive to give the best service to Walmart,
    so our metrics are very important. So with that being said, like,
    we do additional training to make sure that we can get the best
    ACE scorecard number.

           Q. What about the wrap-up process, is there anything
    specialized that WIS . . . has done related to the wrap-up process?

           A. Yeah, so the wrap-up process is unique in a way that --
    first of all, it’s very detailed. Usually by the time that we finish
    counting, Walmart -- you know, they’re well underway in doing
    their recounts and we are now receiving data back from Walmart.

           And in that data that’s coming back, we’re . . . receiving
    discrepancies, which means Walmart has found some errors and
    they’ve assigned [each error] a code, whether it’s a service
    miscount . . . or it’s a prep issue on Walmart’s behalf.

                                  56
                   We then go out and we do additional research for Walmart
             because Walmart, I’ll be honest, . . . they’re not the best at
             counting. So we follow up with them to ensure that . . .
             everything is accurate with that piece.

                    It’s more detailed in the . . . aspect that we have to wait for
             every zone to come back and be completed by both sides prior to
             being able to transmit our inventory.

                   Q. And so what has WIS done that’s special in the wrap-
             up process just to make it better than --

                    A. We’ve had some system improvements that ha[ve]
             helped us to improve our process. You know, our managers are
             trained -- we have some different reporting also that we look at
             that’s more detailed so we can identify issues, you know, . . . on a
             quicker level.

                    That’s . . . pretty much it.

       Juxtaposed against this testimony is Datascan’s conclusion that “WIS has failed

to establish how the knowledge contained in FMEs’ heads[—]including their working

knowledge of how to conduct a Walmart inventory count, which even WIS hourly

employees know and FMEs learned as hourly employees and/or before signing

[r]estrictive [c]ovenants[—]qualifies as protectable confidential information.” In a

footnote, Datascan supports this conclusion by highlighting the testimony of an FME

that

       Walmart has provided consistent guidelines and instructions to all three
       of the inventory companies he has worked at, including RGIS, WIS, and
       Datascan[;] that these instructions of how to perform Walmart
       inventories were not treated as “confidential”[;] and [that] the entire
       teams of employees had access to them. Moreover, [the FME] “knew
       and understood the Walmart procedures before going to work for WIS

                                            57
       and before being governed by any non[]compete agreement while working
       for RGIS.” [Record reference omitted.]

       In the blizzard of arguments made by the parties, no one explicitly points us to

the test we should use to determine if confidential information exists as WIS claims.

Datascan points us to our opinion in Phuong Nguyen v. ABLe Commc’ns, Inc., No. 02-19-

00069-CV, 2020 WL 2071757, at *5 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Apr. 30, 2020, no pet.)

(mem. op.). Datascan argues that in Nguyen, we held that there was not sufficient

information in the record to conclude that information held by a former employee

warranted protection. In Nguyen, we applied the test for trade secrets found in the

Texas Uniform Trade Secrets Act (TUTSA) as follows:

       Under TUTSA, information qualifies as a “trade secret” if it meets two
       requirements: (1) “the owner of the trade secret has taken reasonable
       measures under the circumstances to keep the information secret” and
       (2) “the information derives independent economic value, actual or
       potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily
       ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain
       economic value from the disclosure or use of the information.” Tex.
       Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 134A.002(6).

Id. at *16.16 Because Datascan relies on Nguyen, we will apply the test it utilized.

        The full test in the statutory definition is as follows:
       16

       “Trade secret” means all forms and types of information, including
       business, scientific, technical, economic, or engineering information, and
       any formula, design, prototype, pattern, plan, compilation, program
       device, program, code, device, method, technique, process, procedure,
       financial data, or list of actual or potential customers or suppliers,
       whether tangible or intangible and whether or how stored, compiled, or
       memorialized physically, electronically, graphically, photographically, or
       in writing if[]

                                            58
      Here, the testimony that we have outlined supports an inference that WIS had

developed a unique and valuable process to conduct complicated Walmart

inventories—testimony which Datascan never confronts—and we apply a standard of

review asking whether “the applicant [ ] present[ed] enough evidence to raise a

bona fide issue as to its right to ultimate relief.” See Hernandez, 2021 WL 520456, at *6.

There is some evidence that the inventory procedures that WIS developed met the

test of “not being generally known to, and not being readily ascertainable through

proper means by, another person who can obtain economic value from the disclosure

or use of the information.” Nguyen, 2020 WL 2071757, at *16. This is sufficient to

support the trial court’s exercise of its discretion to issue a temporary injunction that

has the purpose of freezing the status quo until a full record may be developed.17

            (A) the owner of the trade secret has taken reasonable measures
      under the circumstances to keep the information secret; and

             (B) the information derives independent economic value, actual or
      potential, from not being generally known to, and not being readily
      ascertainable through proper means by, another person who can obtain
      economic value from the disclosure or use of the information.

Tex. Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code Ann. § 134A.002(6).
      17
        In its reply brief, Datascan shifts partially to an argument that it fired an
employee who had tried to obtain WIS rates and that a computer expert’s testimony
was very uncertain regarding whether an FME had downloaded confidential
information before leaving WIS. We do not rely on either act to support our
conclusion that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the injunction.

      Datascan also highlights that Snead did not have confidential information
about the Walmart inventory process and uses this as a basis to attack the trial court’s

                                           59
       We overrule Datascan’s first subissue under its second issue.

              2.     The trial court did not abuse its discretion by issuing the
                     injunction order because WIS failed to offer proof that the
                     FMEs breached a fiduciary duty owed to WIS. The evidence
                     raised a bona fide issue of breach.

       Pivoting off its challenge that WIS has no confidential information to protect,

Datascan’s second subissue under its second issue is that WIS failed to produce

evidence that the FMEs breached their fiduciary duties. Datascan concedes that a

terminated employee may breach a fiduciary duty by divulging a former employer’s

trade secrets. See T-N-T Motorsports, Inc. v. Hennessey Motorsports, Inc., 965 S.W.2d 18, 22

(Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1998, pet. dism’d).18 Here, Datascan’s argument

finding that “[i]t is highly probable that, if G. Snead is not restrained, she will take,
use[,] and/or disclose WIS’s Confidential Information to the detriment of WIS.” The
knowledge that Snead had the information needed to solicit WIS employees was
described as follows: “[Snead,] being a human resource regional training acquisition
manager, . . . would have access to hundreds, thousands of people because she would
. . . hire for teams across the country, and also she took part in internal promotion as
well.” Thus, the contention that Snead lacked confidential information on the
Walmart inventory process is wide of the mark.

        The specific holding of T-N-T is as follows:
       18

       Certain duties, apart from any written contract, arise upon the formation
       of an employment relationship. Miller Paper Co. v. Roberts Paper Co., 901
       S.W.2d 593, 600 (Tex. App.—Amarillo 1995, no writ). One of those
       duties forbids an employee from using confidential or proprietary
       information acquired during the relationship in a manner adverse to the
       employer. Id. This obligation survives termination of employment. Id.
       Although this duty does not bar use of general knowledge, skill, and
       experience, it prevents the former employee’s use of confidential
       information or trade secrets acquired during the course of employment.

                                            60
turns on acceptance of its prior argument that WIS has nothing confidential to

protect:

      As discussed above, the information WIS seeks to protect here is not
      protectable confidential information because it is general knowledge,
      skills, and experience FMEs acquired during their employment with WIS
      (and, for some, before their employment with WIS and before they were
      governed by any [r]estrictive [c]ovenants). Moreover, the guidelines for
      conducting a Walmart inventory are dictated by Walmart and are the
      same no matter which inventory company a person works for, whether
      RGIS, WIS, or Datascan. As such, FMEs’ use of such information
      cannot support a cause of action for breach of fiduciary duty (and thus[]
      cannot support a cause of action against Datascan for knowing
      participation in breach of fiduciary duty). [Record references omitted.]

But we just rejected Datascan’s argument that the record is bereft of evidence of a

trade secret or confidential information. That holding also disposes of Datascan’s

present argument.

      In a temporary-injunction context, the protestation that former employees are

not using confidential information is of little avail when they are doing the same job

      Id. at 600–[]01; Am[.] Precision Vibrator Co. v. Nat[’l] Air Vibrator Co., 764
      S.W.2d 274, 278 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 1988, no writ).

             When a claim of improper disclosure or use of trade secrets arises
      from a confidential relationship, the injured party is not required to rely
      upon an express agreement that the offending party will hold the trade
      secret in confidence. Gonzales v. Zamora, 791 S.W.2d 258, 265 (Tex.
      App.—Corpus Christi[–Edinburg] 1990, no writ). However, the
      employer must show that the information was, in fact, a trade secret.
      Am[.] Precision, 764 S.W.2d at 279.

Id. at *21–22.

                                           61
that they did for their former employer that involves the use of confidential

information. As we noted in a prior opinion,

      [T]he argument that [Appellee] cannot provide direct evidence tying
      Individual Appellants’ actions to a loss of policyholders is a variant of an
      argument that we rejected in a parallel case. Specifically, in Tranter . . . ,
      we rejected Individual Appellants’ argument and applied the
      presumption even in the absence of direct evidence of the use of
      confidential information by the former employee because of the
      inevitability that the former employee would use confidential
      information under those circumstances. See 2014 WL 1257278, at *8.
      We rejected their argument because “[r]ather than rebutting the
      presumption, this evidence demonstrates precisely why the presumption
      exists,” namely, because “the former employee working in a similar
      capacity can hardly prevent his knowledge of his former employer’s
      confidential methods from showing up in his work.” Id. (citing Daily
      Instruments . . . , 998 F. Supp. 2d [at] 569 . . . ); Williams v. Compressor Eng’g
      Corp., 704 S.W.2d 469, 472 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] 1986, writ
      ref’d n.r.e.)).

Hernandez, 2021 WL 520456, at *19. The simple fact that the former employees are

carrying information in their heads is not a bar to the conclusion that they may be

using confidential information. Thus, we reject Datascan’s argument that “[t]he [t]rial

[c]ourt abused its discretion [by] granting injunctive relief based upon FMEs’ alleged

breaches of their fiduciary duties and/or Datascan’s alleged aid of such breaches.”19

      19
        Datascan raises another argument buried in footnote 32 of its brief:

      The findings in this paragraph state the [t]rial [c]ourt found that each
      FME “had employment agreements with WIS containing confidentiality,
      non[]solicitation, and non[]competition obligations.” There is no
      evidence in the record that . . . Snead, [her husband, or two other FMEs
      had] signed employment agreements with WIS containing these types of
      provisions[,] and the defined term “Confidentiality Agreements” is not

                                             62
      We overrule Datascan’s second subissue under its second issue.

             3.     We do not reach Datascan’s argument that WIS failed to
                    offer proof that Datascan’s actions caused any damage to
                    WIS by interfering with WIS’s contract with Walmart.

      In its final argument under its second issue, Datascan attacks the evidence

supporting WIS’s pleaded claim that Datascan interfered with WIS’s contracts with

Walmart. As a footnote in Datascan’s brief acknowledges, it is unclear whether the

trial court relied on a probable right of recovery on such an interference claim to

support the temporary injunction:

      The only finding that even potentially discusses Datascan’s alleged
      interference with WIS’s customers states “it appears to the [c]ourt that
      [ . . . ] Datascan is presently engaged in, or will engage in, tortiously
      interfering with WIS’s agreements with employees and customers.” This
      reference to “WIS’s agreements with employees and customers” is vague
      and non[]specific in violation of Rule 683.

Further, WIS pleaded a claim for tortious interference with the FMEs’ agreements.

The basis for that claim is attacked in the myriad arguments that we have already

discussed. Because it is unclear that the trial court even considered the tortious-

interference claim attacked by Datascan in the present subissue as a basis for the

temporary injunction, we will not further lengthen this opinion by prejudging whether

the cause of action has any validity.

      used. Accordingly, this finding is unsupported by the evidence in the
      record and was an abuse of discretion.

     It appears that this is a rehash of the argument that WIS cannot rely on the
RGIS agreements—an argument that we have already rejected.

                                         63
       We overrule Datascan’s second issue, except to the extent that we do not reach

its third subissue.

       D.     Datascan argues in its third issue that the trial court’s injunction
              order failed to meet the requirements of Texas Rule of Civil
              Procedure 683 in a number of particulars.

       Datascan’s third issue launches a series of attacks on the form of the injunction

order. We conclude that Datascan’s arguments have merit and will sustain them.

              1.      We set forth the specificity requirements contained in Texas
                      Rule of Civil Procedure 683.

       Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 683 governs the form of an injunction order.

Tex. R. Civ. P. 683. As we have noted in a prior opinion,

       [Rule 683] dictates that an injunction order “shall describe in reasonable
       detail and not by reference to the complaint or other document, the act
       or acts sought to be restrained.” Id. “An injunction must be definite,
       clear, and concise, leaving the person enjoined in no doubt about his
       duties[] and should not be such as would call on him for interpretations,
       inferences, or conclusions.” Vaughn v. Drennon, 202 S.W.3d 308, 316
       (Tex. App.—Tyler 2006, no pet.) (citing Gulf Oil Corp. v. Walton, 317
       S.W.2d 260, 264 (Tex. App.—El Paso 1958, no writ) (per curiam)).

Hernandez, 2021 WL 520456, at *22. The requirements of Rule 683 are mandatory and

should be strictly followed. Id. at *23.

              2.      We sustain Datascan’s challenge to the injunction order
                      because it fails to specify which WIS customers Datascan is
                      restrained from dealing with.

       Datascan’s first subissue under its third issue attacks the form of the injunction

order that restrains Datascan from interfering with “any contracts or agreements WIS

has with any current clients or customers” because it does not identify who those

                                           64
customers—other than Walmart—are. We agree that the injunction order contains

the flaw that Datascan raises.

      As we have chronicled, the primary contention of WIS is that the FMEs are

importing to Datascan the unique knowledge of how WIS conducts a Walmart

inventory. The record is almost bereft of information about the work that the FMEs

did for other WIS customers or how information relating to those customers could be

used. Certainly, there was general testimony about broad categories of information

that WIS considered confidential, but that information was not tied to a customer of

WIS other than Walmart.

      The injunction order contains a sweeping definition of confidential

information:

      The [c]ourt finds that, among other things, WIS provided the [FMEs]
      access to WIS’s confidential information pertaining to
      inventory[-]services business, which the [c]ourt finds includes: WIS’s
      financial information, including detailed profit[-]and[-]loss statements;
      pricing information pertaining to its customers, including rates paid by
      Walmart for WIS’s inventory services; employee-specific information,
      including contact lists, rosters, team and territory lists, compensation,
      skill level, specialized WIS employee training and training methods; daily
      reports on the performance of each [FME’s] team with comparison to
      other teams; WIS’s best practices and methods for performing inventory
      services for its customers, including practices and methods for
      performing services for Walmart, meeting Walmart’s specifications, and
      performing services effectively and efficiently for Walmart; detailed
      training and information about WIS’s inventory processes and
      technology that are specifically tailored to Walmart; reports and
      information reported to Walmart, information contained in and
      pertaining to [WIS’s software], including all reports, analytics and other
      information that can be obtained and run through these systems to

                                         65
      facilitate the provision of inventory services, and WIS’s software . . . and
      information contained therein (“Confidential Information”).

The definition expands the universe of information that WIS seeks to protect from

just the Walmart-specific information (which is the focus of its claims) to all

information that relates to customers of WIS unidentified in the record. WIS’s brief

attempts to justify a broad sweep with the statement that “[t]he FMEs spent a

considerable amount of time at WIS before leaving[] and worked for different

customers other than Walmart, making them sufficiently familiar with WIS[’s]

business and customers.”      The record reference that WIS provides contains no

support for the statement. Further, some of the categories of information listed in the

definition of “Confidential Information” are never even mentioned in the testimony.

      The injunction order then carries forward the sweeping definition of

Confidential Information into specific restraints that Datascan challenges:

      f. Datascan will refrain from recruiting or soliciting, or attempting to
      recruit or solicit, directly, indirectly or by assisting or encouraging others,
      any persons formerly or currently employed by WIS for the purpose of
      obtaining WIS Confidential Information or utilizing any WIS Confidential
      Information or Former Management Employees to induce WIS customers,
      including Walmart, to divert, withdraw, curtail or cancel any of their inventory
      services business with WIS;

             ....

             h. [Defendants are temporarily enjoined from] utilizing any WIS
      Confidential Information or any Former Management Employees to
      interfere with any contracts or agreements WIS has with any current clients or
      customers, including Walmart, to provide inventory services, or directly or
      indirectly, or by assisting or encouraging others, to take any steps to
      cause any current client or customer of WIS, including Walmart, to

                                            66
       divert, withdraw, curtail or cancel any of its business with WIS.
       [Emphasis added in italics and bold.]

       In simple terms, the injunction order transforms the nature of this case from

one dealing with Datascan’s alleged efforts to pirate confidential information relating

to one client into a restraint that puts Datascan in jeopardy for soliciting unidentified

clients from WIS’s expansive client list because of some inchoate relationship with the

FMEs or broadly and nebulously defined confidential information. The injunction

order does this even though the record does not tell us who those other clients are,

what “confidential information” is generated with respect to those clients, or how the

FMEs were exposed to that unidentified information. As Datascan crystalizes this

argument in its reply brief:

       [A WIS executive] testified that WIS’s customers included “[b]asically
       every major retailer in America.” But, rather than identify customers
       other than Walmart, the trial court imposed a sweeping injunction
       against Datascan from[]

              utilizing any . . . [FME] to interfere with any contracts or
              agreements WIS has with any current clients or customers,
              including Walmart, to provide inventory services, or
              directly or indirectly, or by assisting or encouraging others,
              to take any steps to cause any current client or customer of
              WIS, including Walmart, to divert, withdraw, curtail[,] or
              cancel any of its business with WIS.

       The universe of WIS’s clients is known only to WIS, so Datascan is left
       only to guess. Moreover, the record is devoid of evidence that
       Datascan’s potential competition with these unknown customers would
       implicate any of WIS’s Confidential Information since FMEs were only
       privy to information related to Walmart, who is very different from any
       other client. [Record references omitted.]

                                           67
      WIS tries to sustain the breadth of the provision by relying on authority that we

do not find persuasive. The primary citations that WIS musters to support the

breadth of the injunction hold that an injunction order need not identify clients by

name or that “an injunction order will not be found to be overly broad if the order

enjoins a former employee from soliciting its former employer’s customers without

specifically stating the customers’ names.” See Thomas, 2020 WL 5269412, at *6;

Lockhart v. McCurley, No. 10-09-00240-CV, 2010 WL 966029, at *4 (Tex. App.—Waco

Mar. 10, 2010, no pet.) (mem. op.).

      The Dallas Court of Appeals explained why the primary citation that WIS relies

on misses the mark when an injunction restrains a third party without personal

knowledge of whom an employee had dealt with because such a provision requires

the restrained party to speculate regarding what conduct it may engage in:

      We turn to appellants’ second issue in which they complain of the
      order’s failure to specifically identify the [appellee’s] clients or customers
      whom appellants are prohibited from soliciting or contacting. Paragraph
      21(ii) enjoins appellants from soliciting or contacting “any client or
      customer of [appellee] that [individual appellant had] interacted with as a
      client or customer from July 2012 to July 27, 2017.” Paragraph 21(iii)
      enjoins appellants from soliciting or contacting “any client or customer
      of [appellee] of whom [individual appellant had] retained confidential
      information.” Appellants contend the order needs to name the clients
      or customers or at least reference a list of prohibited customers.

             In Computek Computer & Office Supplies, Inc. v. Walton, this [c]ourt
      considered whether an injunction that failed to name the clients
      Computek was prohibited from contacting complied with [R]ule 683.
      156 S.W.3d 217 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2005, no pet.). The injunction in
      that case enjoined Computek from doing business or authorizing anyone
      else to do business with any client of another business not listed on an

                                           68
      attachment to the order. While the clients Computek could contact were
      identified, the clients it could not contact were not named or identified.
      Id. at 221. We determined that because the injunction itself did not
      provide the specific information as to the off-limits clients, without
      inferences or conclusions, the trial court’s injunction lacked the required
      specificity. Id. at 222–23.

              [Appellee] maintains that the injunction in this case is sufficiently
      specific because it states clients or customers “that [individual appellant
      had] interacted with as a client or customer” and “of whom [individual
      appellant had] retained confidential information.” [Appellee] asserts this
      language put appellants “on notice of exactly who they ma[y] not contact
      by restricting those customers to clients [individual appellant] would be
      intimately familiar with.” But this language requires inferences or
      conclusions to be drawn in order to determine whom appellants may not
      contact. As in Computek, the injunction itself does not provide the
      specific information about who[m] the off-limits clients and customers
      are, and the lack of specificity cannot be cured by any knowledge [that
      individual appellant] may have outside the injunction. See id.; see also
      Rugen v. Interactive Bus. Sys., Inc., 864 S.W.2d 548, 553 (Tex. App.—Dallas
      1993, no writ) (injunction order that prohibits party from soliciting
      customers listed in sealed exhibits admitted into evidence at injunction
      hearing did not violate [R]ule 683). [Appellee] relies on a Waco [C]ourt
      of [A]ppeals[’] case, which in turn relies on a case from this [c]ourt, for
      the proposition that an injunction need not identify the clients by name
      because it is reasonable to presume the employee is sufficiently familiar
      with the customers’ identities to avoid violating the injunction. See
      Lockhart . . . , . . . 2010 WL 966029, at *4 . . . ; see also Safeguard Bus. Sys,
      Inc. v. Schaffer, 822 S.W.2d 640, 644 (Tex. App.—Dallas 1991, no writ).
      These cases are factually distinguishable because the only party enjoined
      from contacting customers was the employee. In this case, the employee
      [individual appellant] is not the only party enjoined from contacting
      [appellee]’s clients; [corporate appellant] is as well and cannot be
      presumed to have knowledge of who[m] [individual appellant had]
      interacted with as a client at [appellee]. We conclude that in failing to
      sufficiently identify the off-limits customers or clients, the order lacks
      the specificity required by [R]ule 683.

McCaskill v. Nat’l Cir. Assembly, No. 05-17-01289-CV, 2018 WL 3154616, at *4 (Tex.

App.—Dallas June 28, 2018, no pet.) (mem. op.).

                                             69
      The provisions under attack restrain Datascan from inducing or causing

unidentified clients from taking certain actions. WIS’s argument mimics the argument

rejected by McCaskill—that because the FMEs might know who they dealt with,

Datascan can be certain who it should not deal with. Further, Datascan is restrained

from using broad classes of confidential information for clients that are not only

unidentified in the order but also are not even specifically identified in the record as

WIS clients. This again leaves Datascan not only to speculate who the clients and

customers are but also to guess whether the information falls within the definition of

confidential information. We conclude that paragraphs f. and h. in the restraints of

the injunction order fail to meet the specificity requirements of Rule 683.

      We sustain Datascan’s first subissue under its third issue.

             3.     We sustain Datascan’s challenge to the injunction order
                    because of its use of the words “in competition with” in
                    describing whom Appellants are prohibited from engaging
                    in business with.

      In a one-paragraph argument supporting its second subissue under its third

issue, Datascan challenges the injunction order’s use of the words “in competition

with WIS” in two of the order’s provisions. The two provisions are as follows:

      e. for a period of one (1) year, G. Snead is prohibited from (i) engaging
      in any inventory services line of business in competition with WIS . . . ;

             ....

             g. [Defendants are temporarily enjoined from u]tilizing any
      Former Management Employee (except Tamatha Rountree) to (i) engage
      in any business activity or work that is in competition with WIS . . . .

                                           70
Datascan claims the provisions are vague because it “cannot determine if all work in

inventory services is considered to be ‘in competition with WIS,’ or if there are some

positions in inventory services for some of Datascan’s customers that would not be

considered ‘in competition with WIS.’” WIS defends the provisions by arguing that

the complained-of language in conjunction with the overall terms of the order

obviates any vagueness and does so by tying such provisions to the confidential-

information provisions of the injunction order.

      But it appears that the provisions in question are intended to create restraints

not based on the use of confidential information but on the noncompete provision of

the FMEs’ agreements. For example, Snead’s agreement provides that she shall not

“engage in any business activity or work that is in any way competitive with any

[b]usiness of RGIS.”     Analogous authority holds that such an all-encompassing

injunction provision is vague. 20 And this provision is particularly troubling in view of

      20
        We note that there is authority that a provision similar to the ones challenged
by Datascan may be impermissibly vague. The Beaumont Court of Appeals reviewed
language that is not identical, but is similar, to that used in the injunction order and
opined that

      [t]he last paragraph of the order, which restricts [appellant’s] “direct or
      indirect involvement with business which is in direct competition with
      the particular business lines of [appellee]” is likewise vague. For
      instance, would [appellant’s] direct or indirect involvement include
      working for Cypress Creek in some role other than as a salesman[] or
      working for Cypress Creek as a salesman but soliciting customers to
      purchase products that fall outside the restrictions of [appellant’s]
      agreement with [appellee]? While it is possible that the trial court would

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Datascan’s argument that the scope of activity in the covenants is unreasonably

broad.21 In view of the vagueness of the injunction provision and the argument that

the scope-of-activity restriction in the covenants should be reformed to narrow it

before it is enforced by injunction, we will remand. Thus, the trial court can address

the issue of the challenged language as part of its consideration of the complaint

about the breadth of the restraint.

      We sustain Datascan’s second subissue under its third issue.

             4.     We sustain Datascan’s challenge to the injunction order
                    because its breadth prohibits the defendants from engaging
                    in lawful activities.

      Datascan in its third subissue under its third issue challenges the injunction

order for being so broad that it prohibits engaging in lawful activity.22 The argument

      not hold [appellant] in contempt for engaging in these activities, the
      language in the order is less than clear. Nevertheless, the parties—
      undertaking in good faith to comply with that party’s respective
      understanding of the scope of the order—could be misled by the scope
      of the trial court’s order. Consequently, we agree with [appellant] that
      the trial court’s order does not comply with the requirements of Rule
      683.

Dickerson v. Acadian Cypress & Hardwoods, Inc., No. 09-13-00299-CV, 2014 WL
1400659, at *7 (Tex. App.—Beaumont Apr. 10, 2014, no pet.) (mem. op.).
      21
        We discuss these contentions in detail in Section II.B.1. of this opinion.
      22
        See Reliant Hosp. Partners, LLC v. Cornerstone Healthcare Grp. Holdings, Inc., 374
S.W.3d 488, 502 (Tex. App.—Dallas 2012, pet. denied) (“In a case involving trade
secrets or confidential information, the injunction must be narrowly tailored to
address the improper use of confidential or proprietary information. Further, the

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then somewhat morphs into one that challenges the specificity of the terms contained

in the injunction order. We agree that the terms of the order lack the specificity

required by Rule 683.

      The challenge focuses on paragraph b. of the injunction order that restrains

Datascan from

      using, disclosing or transferring, or assisting or encouraging others to
      use, disclose[,] or transfer[] any WIS Confidential Information,
      knowledge, know-how, reverse know-how, documents, data, or other
      intellectual property of WIS, including, but not limited to, any WIS
      Confidential Information, knowledge, know-how, reverse know-how,
      documents, data[,] or other intellectual property that any [FME]
      received, maintained, developed[,] or had access to during or after the
      course of his or her employment at WIS . . . .

      Datascan cites cases holding that injunction orders that contain general,

undefined terms restraining a party from the use of information are not specific

enough to meet the requirements of Rule 683. For example, the Dallas Court of

Appeals criticized an injunction order for using general, undefined terms as follows:

      [T]he order . . . states, “The [c]ourt further finds that the CROSSMARK
      Confidential Information and Trade Secrets and other confidential and
      proprietary business information of CROSSMARK and business
      relationships of CROSSMARK are assets belonging solely to
      CROSSMARK.” The terms “confidential,” “proprietary,” and “business
      information” are not defined or explained anywhere in the order, nor
      does the order’s context clarify them in any discernable way. These
      undefined terms are used in provisions (b), (d)(ii), (i), (j)[,] and (k).
      These terms are vague and fail to provide adequate notice to appellants

injunction must not be framed so broadly as to prohibit the enjoyment of lawful
rights.” (citation omitted)).

                                          73
      of the acts they are restrained from doing in terms not subject to
      reasonable disagreement.

Retail Servs. WIS Corp. v. Crossmark, Inc., No. 05-20-00937-CV, 2021 WL 1747033, at

*12 (Tex. App.—Dallas May 4, 2021, pet. denied) (mem. op.) (footnote omitted); see

Ramirez v. Ignite Holdings, Ltd., No. 05-12-01024-CV, 2013 WL 4568365, at *4 (Tex.

App.—Dallas Aug. 26, 2013, no pet.) (mem. op.) (holding that provisions of the

temporary-injunction order lacked necessary specificity because of the failure to

define “Proprietary Information/Trade Secrets” with “enough specificity to give

appellants notice of the acts they are restrained from doing”).

      Here, the first sentence of paragraph b. uses the defined term “Confidential

Information” but then serially lists in the disjunctive “knowledge, know-how, reverse

know-how, documents, data, or other intellectual property of WIS.” The list in the

first sentence is simply a string of highly general terms that catalogs categories beyond

that of the defined term of “Confidential Information.”

      Datascan argues that the vagueness of the language creates the situation where

the FMEs are prohibited from using such things as “knowledge” of WIS and that so

broad a term restrains them from using any knowledge they obtained in their prior

employment whether proprietary or not and, in turn, prevents them from using

general knowledge to engage in lawful activity. Datascan argues that this problem is

compounded by the limited range of information that WIS claimed was proprietary,

with the focus of the proof being on how to conduct a Walmart inventory. Thus,

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generalized knowledge of how inventories of other WIS clients are performed may be

swept up in the language of the injunction order without any proof that such should

be considered protectable as proprietary information that the FMEs are prohibited

from using in pursuing their livelihoods. We agree.

      WIS offers two defenses to the challenged paragraph, both of which we reject.

First, it argues that the limiting phrase “of WIS” at the end of the sentence provides

sufficient guidance because “it prohibits [Datascan] from, among other things, using

or disclosing confidential information ‘of WIS,’ which would be unlawful.” That

argument begs the question whether generalized terms, such as “knowledge . . . of

WIS,” meet the specificity requirements of Rule 683 or clearly define that only

proprietary information of WIS rather than some generalized knowledge obtained by

an FME is off limits. The term “of WIS” may specify whose “knowledge” it is, but it

is still a flawed general term leaving the restrained party to guess what constitutes

knowledge.

      WIS’s next defense is that the injunction order provides the necessary

specificity because “the [i]njunction’s definition of ‘Confidential Information’ includes

specifically defined categories of information and examples of items within those

categories.”   That argument ignores the disjunctive structure of the sentence in

question. As noted, it begins with the defined term “WIS Confidential Information”

but then serially lists other general terms besides “WIS Confidential Information.”

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      We conclude that the vague and general terms in paragraph b. of the injunction

order fail to meet the specificity requirements of Rule 683 and potentially improperly

restrain the FMEs from lawful activities.

      We sustain Datascan’s third subissue under its third issue.

             5.     We sustain Datascan’s challenge to the injunction order
                    because of its use of the phrase “including, but not limited
                    to.”

      Finally, Datascan in its fourth subissue under its third issue challenges the form

of the injunction order because of the insertion of the phrase “including, but not

limited to” primarily in paragraph b., which we just held is lacking specificity. As set

forth above, that paragraph restrains Appellants from

      using, disclosing or transferring, or assisting or encouraging others to
      use, disclose[,] or transfer[] any WIS Confidential Information,
      knowledge, know-how, reverse know-how, documents, data, or other
      intellectual property of WIS, including, but not limited to, any WIS
      Confidential Information, knowledge, know-how, reverse know-how,
      documents, data[,] or other intellectual property that any [FME]
      received, maintained, developed[,] or had access to during or after the
      course of his or her employment at WIS . . . . [Emphasis added.]

      Some cases conclude that the usage of “including, but not limited to” language

is permissible, and some conclude that it is not. Obviously here each party relies on

cases supporting its view of whether the injunction order is or is not vague because of

the order’s use of that phrase. It appears that the distinction between the permissible

and impermissible use of the phrase lies in whether the phrase increases clarity or

increases confusion.   When the phrase clarifies by giving examples to explain a

                                            76
generalized category that is made sufficiently specific when read in the context of the

evidence in the record, it is permissible, but when the phrase confuses by suggesting

undefined categories different than the category to which the phrase is appended, it is

impermissible.

      The following are examples of the first category, where the use of the phrase

did not create an ambiguity that violated the specificity requirement of Rule 683:

      •      Although an injunction order included “‘catch all’ language, specific

             examples of confidential information were [also] given in the order.”

             Bellefeuille v. Equine Sports Med. & Surgery, Weatherford Div., PLLC, No. 02-

             15-00268-CV, 2016 WL 1163364, at *7 (Tex. App.—Fort Worth Mar.

             24, 2016, no pet.) (mem. op.). “These examples—when read in the

             context of [appellee’s] counterclaims, the evidence at the hearing, and

             the fact that the trial court found that [appellant] was in possession of

             [appellee’s]   proprietary   and    confidential     information—provided

             [appellant] with adequate notice of the information she is prohibited

             from using or disclosing.” Id. (footnote omitted).

      •      An injunction order provided that “Confidential Information pursuant

             to this definition includes, but is not limited to[, various specific items

             listed].” Lasser v. Amistco Separation Prods., Inc., No. 01-14-00432-CV,

                                           77
             2014 WL 4952501, at *6–7 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] Oct. 2,

             2014, no pet.) (mem. op.). The opinion concluded that

                    the order makes clear the prohibited conduct by listing and
                    describing specific categories and examples of information
                    that comprise “trade secrets” and “confidential
                    information.”     The specific examples of the items
                    comprising “trade secrets” and “confidential information,”
                    when read in the context of the suit, provided [appellant]
                    with adequate notice of the information that he is
                    prohibited from using or disclosing.

             Id. at *7.

      •      A court of appeals concluded that “the injunction is not impermissibly

             vague merely because it contains phrases such as ‘including but not

             limited to’” but apparently modified the injunction order by striking the

             phrase from the paragraph that incorporated the definition of

             confidential information. McCaskill, 2018 WL 3154616, at *3.

      The following are examples of the second category, where the use of the phrase

created an ambiguity that violated the specificity requirement of Rule 683:

      •      An injunction order prohibited transfers from the bank account of a

             party, including but not limited to a specifically identified account. In re

             Krueger, No. 03-12-00838-CV, 2013 WL 2157765, at *3 (Tex. App.—

             Austin May 16, 2013, orig. proceeding). The restrained party was not

             provided with information to identify what the other accounts were, and

                                          78
    thus the injunction order failed to meet the reasonable detail

    requirement of Rule 683. Id.

•   An injunction order restrained a party from “possessing, disclosing to

    any third party, or using for their own benefit or to the detriment of

    [either appellee] any of [either appellee’s] Proprietary Information/Trade

    Secrets (including but not limited to proprietary information,

    confidential information, training materials, templates, or sales or

    customer lists).” Ramirez, 2013 WL 4568365, at *3. Other portions of

    the injunction order provided additional definitions, but they were

    “broad and general, such as ‘techniques,’ ‘materials,’ ‘proprietary

    information,’ and ‘confidential information.’” Id. The Dallas Court of

    Appeals concluded that the

           provision of the injunction [prohibiting the use of
           Proprietary Information/Trade Secrets] does not define
           “Proprietary Information/Trade Secrets” with enough
           specificity to give appellants adequate notice of the acts
           they are restrained from doing. Instead, they must infer
           whether any particular information or item in their
           possession constitutes “proprietary information” or
           “confidential information” subject to the injunction.

    Id. at *4.

•   An injunction order prohibited the use of “‘Confidential and Trade

    Secret Information,’ which according to the injunction ‘includes, but is

    not limited to,’ a two-page list of items.”       Cooper Valves, LLC v.

                                 79
              ValvTechnologies, Inc., 531 S.W.3d 254, 266 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th

              Dist.] 2017, no pet.). Such an “open-ended” definition failed to meet the

              specificity requirements of Rule 683. Id.

       We have already noted that there is a conspicuous lack of specificity in the

paragraph that Datascan challenges. That vagueness is not improved but is instead

compounded by the use of the phrase “including, but not limited to” and the clause

that follows it. The first sentence lists highly general terms. Then the provision

includes the phrase “including, but not limited to” and is followed by the same serial,

disjunctive list but now has appended to the end of it the clause “that any [FME]

received, maintained, developed[,] or had access to during or after the course of his or her

employment at WIS.” [Emphasis added.] Thus, the paragraph is so broad that it

prohibits the use of “knowledge” that an employee “had access to” even if that access

came after the course of employment. To parse what this may include seems an

impossible task.

       Again, as we have noted, the specific focus in the record of the confidential

information that WIS is attempting to protect is the inventory processes that it

developed for Walmart. The record provides no guidance regarding what the general

terms used might mean for information with respect to other clients of WIS. As

Datascan notes, there is an interchange of information between the clients such as

Walmart and the inventory service. Exactly whose information is included in this

interchange can be unclear. Datascan offers the following example of this quandary:

                                            80
       By way of example, WIS testified that Walmart shares amongst its
       inventory providers how they rank compared to one another. It is
       possible that the [t]emporary [i]njunction would prevent Datascan from
       receiving this information from Walmart when clearly it is not WIS’s
       proprietary information. Similarly, WIS claimed that [it] worked for
       three years in conjunction with Walmart in developing Walmart’s
       internal app. This app product may contain “including but not limited
       to, any WIS . . . knowledge, know-how, reverse know-how, documents,
       data, or other intellectual property,” but WIS readily admits it is not [its]
       “confidential information.” [Record references omitted.]

We agree that the wording of the injunction order makes it unclear whether Datascan

is in jeopardy for using such information.

       We conclude that the vague and general terms of paragraph b. in the injunction

order are compounded by the use of the “including but not limited to” phrase, and

that phrase provides another reason why the injunction order fails to meet the

specificity requirements of Rule 683.

       We sustain Datascan’s fourth subissue under its third issue. Thus, we sustain

its entire third issue.

                          IV. Conclusion and Relief Granted

       Having overruled Datascan’s first and second issues, with the exception of

remanding this matter to the trial court to determine whether the scope-of-activity

covenants at issue should be modified before being made the subject of injunctive

relief, and having sustained Datascan’s third issue, we hold that the trial court did not

abuse its discretion by issuing the temporary-injunction order but conclude the

restraints do not meet the requirements of Rule 683.

                                             81
       With respect to how we will address the defects in the injunction order, we

have previously noted that we may modify an injunction order that is overly broad or

vague, if possible. See Hernandez, 2021 WL 520456, at *34. Here, in view of the need

to possibly modify the scope of activity in the covenants compounded by the defects

in the injunction order, we view the task as best left to the trial court. Therefore, with

respect to paragraphs b., e., f., g., and h. of the injunction order’s restraints, we reverse

the injunction order and remand this case to the trial court for further proceedings

consistent with this opinion.23

                                                         /s/ Dabney Bassel

                                                         Dabney Bassel
                                                         Justice

Delivered: November 16, 2023

       23
         We opt not to dissolve the injunction but remand for the trial court to address
the deficiencies in the injunction order identified in this opinion. See McCaskill, 2018
WL 3154616, at *4 (concluding that the proper remedy is to remand to the trial court
rather than to dissolve a temporary-injunction order to address the order’s lack of
specificity).

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