The Farewell to Judge Posner: Ten Opinions for Non-Compete Lawyers to Read

Less than two weeks ago, Judge Richard Posner left the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Immediately. No senior status. No notice. Just up and left. Presumably to hang out with his cat, Pixie.

And like that, the most widely cited appellate judge since at least Henry Friendly (and probably well before that) was gone.

His post-retirement exploits are being met with more than a little skepticism and head-scratching, as he promptly released a long book airing some of his dirty laundry with his Seventh Circuit colleagues. The early returns are, how shall we put it, not great.

I met Judge Posner once, when I was a 3L at the University of Illinois College of Law and editor of the Moot Court Board. He had come down for the annual competition, and I was sort of coordinating it. He was as you'd expect. Passively intimidating, somewhat aloof, lost in his thoughts. Not on my dream dinner guest list. I've argued three cases in the Seventh Circuit but never had him on a panel, which was probably just as well. Oral arguments with him are just torture to listen to, as the whole thing seemed to resemble a reflexive exercise in self-indulgence.

In truth, I can't say he was my favorite judge. I liked his writing style, to a point, and I appreciated the unconventional approach he took with cases. I think his overly academic view of non-compete agreements, however, was not at all pragmatic (even though he claims to have been the great pragmatist). I found many of his recent opinions to be a bit out there, such as his bizarre concurring opinion in the Hively case that brought sexual orientation within Title VII's sexual discrimination ambit. And I certainly don't think he was the best judge on his own court. I always have felt Judge Frank Easterbrook was stronger, more consistent, and more clear in his writing. And even Judges Diane Sykes and David Hamilton have approaches to deciding cases that I can grasp with much greater confidence.

But, he's Posner and everyone seems to worship him. So some tribute seems in order. Though the Seventh Circuit only decides one or two trade secrets or non-compete cases per year, his influence in this area is profound with a number of important decisions under his belt. I thought I'd offer a farewell to Posner with a top ten list of cases he wrote that influence this field of law:

10. Outsource Int'l, Inc. v. Barton, 192 F.3d 662 (7th Cir. 1999). This is the one dissent from Judge Posner I am including, and it's from an appellate decision that endorses a staffing industry non-compete. Posner thought the result was correct in principle, but not under Illinois law. So he dissented. But in doing so, he outlined the historical hostility to non-competes and concluded "[t]here is no longer any good reason for such hostility." He does a nice job wading through the policy choices behind non-compete enforcement and the courts' antagonism to these restraints. But, I think he has it all wrong. His concerns are, no doubt, academically grounded. But he largely misses the point that a disparity in bargaining power, coupled with asymmetrical resources, create a large deadweight loss to society from breezy judicial attitudes towards non-compete arrangements.

9. Nightingale Home Healthcare, Inc. v. Anodyne Therapy, LLC, 626 F.3d 662 (7th Cir. 2010). This is a trademark case, but it's instructive for analyzing fee petitions. Trademark defendants can obtain fees only if the case is exceptional. In Nightingale Home Health Care, Judge Posner says that a defendant can meet the exceptionality standard by showing the case was an "abuse of process," designed to impose disproportionate costs on the defendant. This standard mirrors that under the Trade Secret Act's "bad faith" provision and reflects a pragmatic approach. Just as important, Posner cautions against an elaborate state-of-mind inquiry on the fee petition, preferring that fee-petition hearings be summary proceedings rather than drawn-out affairs.

8. Confold Pacific, Inc. v. Polaris Indus., Inc., 433 F.3d 952 (7th Cir. 2006). I call this a "trade-secrets light" case. It confronts the frequent fact-pattern of what happens when one party, bound by a contractual relationship, tries to subvert contract law and claim a host of related remedies from a relationship gone wrong, such as unjust enrichment and trade-secrets theft. Judge Posner deftly explains, as if lecturing the plaintiff's counsel, what trade secrets are and how they fit into a broad continuum of other intellectual property and informational rights.

7. Rockwell Graphic Systems, Inc. v. Dev Indus., Inc., 925 F.2d 174 (7th Cir. 1991). This is a terrific read for trade-secret practitioners who are litigating the issue of whether one made reasonable efforts to keep proprietary information secret. Factually, the case addresses a common issue. Can one claim trade-secret status for information that is disclosed to others - in this case, vendors who receive part drawings? Judge Posner says yes and explains in very simple, easy-to-understand language why that's the case.

6. Micro Data Base Systems, Inc. v. Dharma Systems, Inc., 148 F.3d 649 (7th Cir. 1998). The first of three damages cases, this one involving a claim of trade-secret misappropriation by a software developer against a buyer who disclosed the program to a third-party. The proof of damages was relatively simple, in effect allowing a non-expert to base a claimed damage award on projected lost future sales. Judge Posner rejected the argument that because the testimony was self-serving, it was inadmissible. The case also contains a good discussion of the point made earlier in Rockwell Graphic Systems - that some trade secrets (to be useful) must be disclosed to others. That won't destroy secrecy in the legal sense.

5. ATA Airlines, Inc. v. Federal Express Corp., 665 F.3d 882 (7th Cir. 2011). From a simple damages presentation to a downright intimidating one, Judge Posner vacated a jury verdict in excess of $65,000,000. Key to the discussion was the failure of the parties and the district court judge to understand the expert's damages testimony. Posner tears into the regression analysis that ATA's expert applied to the breach-of-contract suit. He makes a couple of crucial points. First, if a district court judge doesn't understand what the expert is saying he can either require him to speak in plain English or appoint the court's own expert. Second, he concluded the attorneys in the case did not understand the regression analysis central to the damages presentation (kind of shocking, given the size of the damages requested and granted by the jury). And as if to prove a point, Posner spends pages dissecting the damages analysis and ripping it apart, concluding ultimately that the expert's "regression had as many bloody wounds as Julius Caesar when he was stabbed 23 times by the Roman Senators led by Brutus." For the lawyers in the case, this must have been a tough one to read.

4. Schiller & Schmidt, Inc. v. Nordisco Corp., 969 F.2d 410 (7th Cir. 1992). Another case on damages, this one with a simpler and punchier analysis, is one of my favorite opinions. It is decidedly defense friendly, but the gist of it is that courts must pay close attention to expert witness damages theories and not let those witnesses get away with what Judge Posner calls "simplistic extrapolation and childish arithmetic." Posner's opinion chastises both the expert and the plaintiff for their failure to attribute lost revenue to causes unrelated to the act of trade secret misappropriation. This is a must-read for any defense counsel litigating a claim on damages where several intersecting causes may have played a part in the alleged loss.

3. Grip-Pak, Inc. v. Illinois Tool Works, Inc., 694 F.2d 466 (7th Cir. 1983). The hidden gem of all Judge Posner cases. I love this decision for many reasons. The gist of the action was Grip-Pak's claim that baseless anti-competitive litigation behavior violated antitrust laws under the Sherman and Clayton Acts. The essence of Posner's commentary is found in this passage: "The existence of a tort of abuse of process shows that it has long been thought that litigation could be used for improper purposes even when there is probably cause for the litigation; and if the improper purpose is to use litigation as a tool for suppressing competition in its antitrust sense...it becomes a matter of antitrust concern."

2. Roland Machinery Co. v. Dresser Indus., Inc., 749 F.2d 380 (7th Cir. 1984). If you didn't study this case in law school, you're very old or went to a shitty law school. This is the case that in effect teaches the preliminary injunction standard and how courts should evaluate the standard in light of the evidence. Not only does Judge Posner give an in-depth analysis of the "inadequate remedy at law" test, but he also gives courts a new way to think about how the traditional four injunction factors fit together. He articulates what is still called the "sliding scale" analysis, in which courts weigh the moving party's likelihood of success and the relative harms associated with grants or denials of injunctive relief. In other words, he reformulates the test so that courts may balance one against the other. A strong case for injunctive relief does not require a substantial showing of harm from a denial of that relief.

1. Curtis 1000, Inc. v. Suess, 24 F.3d 941 (7th Cir. 1994). At the time, Curtis 1000 seemed like a garden-variety non-compete case in which the employer simply failed to demonstrate a protectable interest supporting the covenant. But the case has taken on added importance in Illinois, given the ongoing and unresolved debate on just what constitutes adequate consideration for at-will employee restrictive covenants. In classic Judge Posner style, he dissects the justification for the consideration rules and then reconstructs them in a way that is readable and satisfying.

Judicial Engagement and Non-Compete Litigation

The lack of judicial engagement is a serious thing - particularly in competition disputes.

What do I mean by judicial engagement? For simplicity, I mean a bridge between judicial activism and judicial restraint. It's a method of evaluating and deciding cases, plain and simply.

The term is somewhat in vogue in libertarian circles (which I inhabit) and used when litigants challenge economic regulations on the grounds that they are irrational or impinge on personal liberties.

So when a government enacts a law that restricts economic freedom - say, an occupational licensing requirement - those who favor judicial engagement do not want courts to abdicate their roles. That is to say, courts should not simply defer to whatever the legislature says is a rational justification for the law.

Rather, courts must engage with the evidence and ensure that it supports the need for the law. And on that score, advocates for judicial engagement would argue that protectionism is never a valid governmental interest. Unfortunately, the black-letter rules that attend government economic regulation all but invite trial judges to defer entirely to whatever the legislature says. An overreading of these black-letter principles leads courts to the wrong results, in which they often time rely on theoretical assumptions or abstract hypotheticals.

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The same decisional framework, judicial engagement, applies to non-compete cases because the applicable legal rule already demand a searching analysis without granting undue deference to the party in whose favor a non-compete runs. So that seems easy enough and a perfectly reasonable analogue to the traditional playing field for the theory of judicial engagement.

I digress for a second, but only a second. As my colleague Jonathan Pollard writes in a recent post, non-competes are first and foremost restraints of trade. Unless we are discussing a negotiated agreement (such as in a sale of business) with real consideration, non-competes are not traditional contracts. They may not even be contracts at all.

When an employer involves the government, here the judiciary, the same liberty concerns arise - with just as much force as an irrational, generally applicable regulation that the legislature passes. The problem that has vexed courts, lawyers, and litigants is how to engage or grapple with the facts in a non-compete dispute. To be sure, judicial restraint is no method of deciding such cases at all.

But many courts employ a burden-shifting approach that all but requires an employee to prove the impossible: that the employer lacks a legitimate business interest in enforcing a restraint. Allowing employers, for instance, simply to mouth some variant of a "legitimate business interest" is not the proper way for a judge to sanction a restraint and impede someone's livelihood.

Let me be clear: nothing in the philosophy of judicial engagement calls upon courts usurp their roles. Just as it is crucial for courts to assess the rationale for governmental regulations of economic activity, it is a moral imperative for them to scrutinize an employer's attempt to enforce through court order a restraint of trade. This is particularly so given the dead weight that enforced and unenforced non-competes have on the economy and productivity.

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Let's take an example of judicial abdication, rather than engagement. The Kansas case of Servi-Tech, Inc. v. Olson is as bland of a non-compete case as you can get. I've handled some variation of this dispute for 20 years, and this fits within the most basic of fact-patterns, summarized (for simplicity as follows):

• Employee signs a non-compete agreement, containing a broad 2-year market-based restraint wherever the company's clients are located;
• Employee's non-compete also contains a 2-year restriction against soliciting clients with whom he had contact;
• Employee works for 2 years before the company terminates him;
• Employee receives nothing but his job for signing the agreement;
• Employee is assigned 10 clients when he starts;
• Employee's friends and family then comprise 5 additional clients after he starts;
• After being fired, employee stays in the same field and works only with his 5 "friends-and-family" contacts.

The district court enforces the non-solicitation agreement against the employee and includes within the injunction the 5 new clients that joined the company because of their relationship with the employee.

I am simplifying the case for purposes of this discussion. And there are elements of the court's ruling that are proper (if not in reasoning then certainly in result). For instance, the court found the market-based restraint unenforceable, which seems fairly obvious.

But I am concerned about the reasoning in the injunction opinion, particularly its lack of engagement with the facts. On this score, the court seems just to be accepting at theoretical value whatever the employer has said in defense of its broad restraint.

For instance, in discussing the employer's proof of a legitimate business interest, the court said this:

"Olson received some special crop consulting and agronomy training from Servi-Tech, so Servi-Tech has a legitimate business interest to enforce the non-competition clause to protect its investment in him. This, coupled with Servi-Tech's interest of not losing customers, justifies the non-solicitation provision ... that prevents Olson from contacting customers he had worked with as a Servi-Tech employee."

Let's examine this further.

First, the court never describes any aspect of this "training" that the employee, Olson, received. Training if an oft-asserted, rarely convincing "interest" in need of protection. Would companies fail to train people if they lacked non-competes? Does all training incentivize performance or build goodwill? Hardly. The interest is easy to state in the abstract but it often falls apart under even the most basic level of scrutiny. More problematically, the court in Servi-Tech never explains why the particular training received justifies a 2-year work ban (to be fair, it later found the non-compete unreasonable on other grounds). Put differently, the court abdicated its role to assess the proper fit between the asserted interest and the scope of the restriction. 

Second, the interest in "not losing customers" is hardly one to justify a restraint of trade. True, there may be something special about a particular customer relationship - exclusivity, large up-front capital investment - that could justify a customer-based restraint. But no business wants to lose customers. Classifying this as an interest, much less a proven rationale, is judicial abdication and the product of undue deference to whatever the employer says.

Third, the court uses this purported interest to justify a restraint on all customers Olson had worked with at Servi-Tech. But what about the five family members who came to Servi-Tech because of Olson. What does the court say about them: "...they still became Servi-Tech's clients - not Olson's. Once they became Servi-Tech's clients, Servi-Tech was entitled to the benefits of doing business with them." True. That only is relevant, though, for the time Olson worked there. Nothing indicates that Servi-Tech did anything to create goodwill with those small group of personal contacts Olson had. Perhaps they would have come even if Servi-Tech had a poor marketplace reputation. In all likelihood, their fealty was to Olson himself. The court simply used an overbroad rationalization - "they're the employer's clients" - to justify a restraint that limits not just Olson's rights, but those of the clients themselves.

This is not to say, of course, that enforcement of all non-solicitation covenants leads to the same analytical problem. All I am asking for is for courts to engage and not defer. Engage with the facts, as well as the logical conclusions and implications of what the employer alleges.

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So what must judges do to engage, rather than defer or abdicate? Here are some preliminary suggestions and steps:

(1) Hold the employer to a strict burden of proof. In some states, this is not an option for judges. Unless the legislature has made a qualitative judgment concerning this burden, the employer must bear it at all times.

(2) Evaluate the fit between the asserted business interests, the evidentiary facts, and the scope of the restriction. It is not enough for the employer simply to state an interest it deems worthy of protection. The court must demand hard evidence that supports an interest over and above protectionism. And the employer must demonstrate the logical relationship between the interest and the restraint's reach.

(3) Disaggregate special skills, training, or customer relationships from those that are ordinary or common. Too often, we see employers recasting easily acquired industry knowledge (even if through day-to-day work experience) as trade secrets. And training that is conventional on-the-job training, or gained via everyday work experience, is often something that employers provide regardless of having a signed non-compete. 

(4) Examine the time period of the restraint and assess its fit to the asserted interest. It is insufficient for courts to point to some case 20 years ago where a durationally similar non-compete was enforced. That is not engagement - that's punting.

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Of course, these are just starting points. I have advocated, too, other approaches such as "quick-look" hearings on adequacy of consideration or facial validity of the agreement. Those may have some utilitarian, pragmatic benefit. But if we're constrained at this point to evaluate all non-compete cases individually, then judges really need to start doing so. No more deference to the employer. No more blind acceptance of allegations that have some theoretical appeal. And no more forgiveness of evidentiary lapses.

The Reading List (2017, No. 25): Eighth Circuit Affirms Damages Award in West Plains Litigation

Non-Compete and Trade Secrets News for the week ended September 1, 2017

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Jury Verdict Affirmed in West Plains Litigation

The Nebraska case of West Plains, LLC v. Retzlaff Grain is unique in that it belongs in the limited group of trade secrets and unfair competition cases to proceed to jury verdict. The case is garden-variety lift-out, engineered by a former owner of the plaintiff who systematically recruited away key employees to replicate his former business. A Nebraska jury returned a verdict of $1,513,000 in compensatory damages (along with compensation forfeiture in varying amounts against certain ex-employees).

The case is valuable for its discussion of a very common tort that usually accompanies trade-secret or non-compete claims: interference with business relationships. In most cases, interference can be privileged or legally justified if it's for competitive purposes. But interference can be tortious (or wrongful) if done in bad faith, with improper means, or as part of a fraudulent or illegal scheme. Here, the Eighth Circuit found that enough evidence of unjust interference was present in the employees' mass exodus from their former employer. Specifically, the employees used customer lists, documents, and other internal confidential information to plan a coordinated departure. Too, the plaintiff introduced communications that suggested the defendants knew they were acting inappropriately in using their then-employer's information to establish a turn-key competitor from day one.

West Plains shows the value that ancillary tort claims can play in competition cases. With the right facts, it is not always necessary to have a restrictive covenant. To be sure, finding evidence of bad faith or willful misconduct is not easy. But employees seem to keep finding a way to leave digital fingerprints all over the place.

A link to the opinion is available here.

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Privilege in the Waymo/Uber Fight

Privilege issues in trade secrets litigation can arise in a variety of ways. But those issues extend well beyond garden-variety claims of attorney-client or work-product privilege.

The trade-secrets battle-of-the-millennium in Waymo, LLC v. Uber Technologies, Inc. has featured several intricate disputes over production of privileged materials. In July, Magistrate Judge Corley denied Waymo's efforts to compel Anthony Levandowski - the ex-Google engineer in charge of driverless car technology - to produce documentation and media that would have reflected his retention of 14,000 files belonging to Waymo and that concerned its proprietary LiDAR technology. Given that Levandowski's pre-termination conduct posed a risk that he would be prosecuted for trade-secrets theft, the court found that compelling the production of those files would implicate his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.

But Judge Corley's order denying Waymo's motion to compel went further. She extended the Fifth Amendment privilege to a privilege log that Levandowski had to prepare. The court had required Levandowski to develop the privilege log with enough substance so that Waymo could respond to his Fifth Amendment arguments. As her ruling shows, even the outlines and parameters of a privilege log, without a corresponding production of the logged materials, can provide enough of a link to a potential crime so as to implicate constitutional concerns.

The Order is available at Waymo, LLC v. Uber Techs., Inc., No. 17-cv-939, 2017 WL 2864854 (N.D. Cal. July 5, 2017).