It’s my anniversary. Two years ago today I launched this blog with What a Litigator Looks For in the Typical Texas Non-Compete. I thought it best to start with a topic I know. I outlined the five things I look for to determine if a non-compete is enforceable under Texas law.

That post has held up pretty well. Since then, I’ve seen plenty more non-competes. Texas non-compete law hasn’t fundamentally changed, and I still look for those five things. So, if you want an intro to Texas non-compete law, that post is still a good place to start. Or you can watch a video version here.

But two more years have taught me there is a simpler question to ask when a client brings me a non-compete. As a general rule, you can boil down the practical effect of Texas non-compete law to just seven words: you can’t take your customers with you.

What do I mean? If you’re a sales person who has a non-compete and relationships with customers—the most common situation—it is likely a judge will order you not to do business with your customers from your previous company. But the judge shouldn’t completely bar you from working for a competitor.

In other words, you can compete for new customers, but you can’t take your old customers with you. I call this Wolfe’s First Law of Texas Non-Compete Litigation.

It’s really more of a general rule, but I like the sound of “First Law” more than “First General Rule.”

It’s just a rule of thumb because like most legal rules, it has exceptions, and the whole truth is more complicated. Still, experience has taught me that nine times out of ten, my First Law will hold true.

This means if you’re an employer trying to stop an employee from violating a non-compete, you can probably prevent the employee from taking her customers with her, but you probably can’t do more than that.

If that’s all you need to know, you can stop here. If you want to understand why, read on.

The reasoning behind Wolfe’s First Law of Texas Non-Compete Litigation

Here’s how I get there. The Texas non-compete statute has two requirements: (1) a non-compete must be “ancillary to an otherwise enforceable agreement,” and (2) it must be reasonable.

Employers usually meet the first requirement by (a) expressly stating in the non-compete that they will give the employee confidential information, and (b) actually giving the employee confidential information. A Texas Supreme Court case called Sheshunoff clarified that this will do the trick.

This is where the first big exception comes in. You will sometimes run across a non-compete that does not expressly promise to give the employee confidential information. Usually when you see that it’s either a really old non-compete, or a non-compete drafted for a multi-state company without Texas in mind.

If there is no express promise, you have to look at whether there was an implied promise to provide confidential information. A case called Mann Frankfort said the promise is implied if the nature of the employee’s work necessarily involves providing confidential information. That can be a fact-intensive issue.

Most employers avoid this detour by including an express promise to provide confidential information in the non-compete. Then the second big exception comes into play: did the employer actually provide confidential information to the employee?

I have had cases where there was a genuine dispute about whether the information was really confidential. You are more likely to see this in situations where an employee already had a book of business when he joined the company, or where sales people are entirely responsible for generating their own leads and customers. If the employer didn’t provide confidential information, the non-compete is unenforceable.

But most of the time, it’s pretty easy for the company to show that it provided some confidential information to the employee.

Now that we’ve cleared those possible exceptions out of the way, it’s time to turn to reasonableness.

Let’s be reasonable

Like most states, Texas requires a non-compete to be reasonable in time period, geographic area, and scope of activity restrained.

The good news for employees is that there is almost always at least a decent argument that some aspect of the non-compete is unreasonably broad. Especially the “scope of activity” part. While most Texas lawyers are pretty good about including a reasonable time period and geographic limitation, Texas non-competes are often too broad in the scope of activity they restrict.

Maybe this is because the scope of activity limitation is largely defined by the case law, so a lawyer who only reads the statute won’t get the whole picture. The case law says that an “industry-wide exclusion”—a restriction that prevents the employee for working in the same industry in any way—is too broad.

That’s because a non-compete should be limited to protecting the employer’s goodwill, i.e. its relationships with existing customers. The simplest way to do this is to say–usually in one really long sentence with fancier words–that the employee can’t take her customers with her. That’s a reasonable scope (generally). On the other hand, a non-compete that bars the employee from working for a competitor in any way is usually too broad and therefore unenforceable as written.

But employees shouldn’t get too excited. There is also good news for the employer.

First, note I said unenforceable “as written.” The non-compete statute says that if the non-compete is too broad, the judge must reform it—i.e., rewrite it—to the extent necessary to make it reasonable.

Second, even if the non-compete is too broad, as a practical matter a judge can still issue a temporary injunction to enforce the non-compete to a reasonable extent.[1] (A temporary injunction is an order that applies while the lawsuit is pending.)

Now you can see Wolfe’s First Law coming into focus. When you put all this together, you get two likely scenarios. If the non-compete is reasonable in scope because it is limited to preventing the employee from taking her customers with her, then the judge is likely to grant a temporary injunction that enforces the non-compete as written. If the non-compete is unreasonable in scope because it is not so limited, the judge is likely to limit the injunction to a reasonable scope, i.e. preventing the employee from taking her customers with her.

In either case, the effect is the same. And Wolfe’s First Law of Texas Non-Compete Litigation holds true.

Caveat Five-or

Again, there are exceptions. For example, some judges take the “irreparable injury” rule seriously. That rule says that a court should not grant an injunction if damages would be adequate to compensate the company for the employee’s violation of the non-compete.

My personal view—perhaps a post for another day—is that courts should apply this requirement more strictly. In most cases damages would be adequate to compensate the employer for any lost customers.

But most judges are not so fastidious about the irreparable injury rule. If the judge thinks the employee is violating the non-compete by steering competitors to the employee’s new company, a temporary injunction is likely.

Of course, a temporary injunction is not the end of the story. It is temporary, after all.

Still, in most cases a temporary injunction enforcing the non-compete might as well be a permanent injunction. Why? Remember that a non-compete must be reasonably limited in time. Time periods of three years or longer have sometimes been held reasonable, but most non-competes are limited to one or two years.

How long do you think it usually takes for a case to get to trial? (Hint: at least one or two years.) That means that in many cases, the non-compete will expire before the case goes to trial, or around that time. That’s why I say a temporary injunction might as well be a permanent injunction.

So maybe we should modify Wolfe’s First Law to say this: you can’t take your customers with you, until a year or two after you leave.

But that just doesn’t have the same ring to it.

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Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. Someday he will come up with a “Wolfe’s Second Law” for something.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Reformation is a remedy that typically would not be granted until a final judgment after trial. There is some legal question about whether the judge at a temporary injunction hearing should (1) reform the non-compete as a temporary remedy and enter a temporary injunction enforcing the reformed non-compete, or (2) simply enter a temporary injunction that only partially enforces the non-compete to a reasonable extent. The distinction seems largely academic.

Is the reasonableness of a Texas non-compete a question of law or a question of fact?

I was once defending a Texas non-compete lawsuit and taking the deposition of the business owner who was trying to enforce the non-compete. I asked if he had any view of what a reasonable length of time for the non-compete would be. His answer: “when hell freezes over.”

That’s why I love litigation.

Recalling that answer got me thinking about an important issue in non-compete law: Is the reasonableness of a non-compete a question of law or a question of fact? If you’ve read a few Texas non-compete cases, you may already know the answer. There are dozens of cases reciting that the reasonableness of a non-compete is a question of law.

And all of those cases are wrong.

Or at least they are only partially correct. Why?

Before we can answer that question, we need to tackle a deeper jurisprudential question, the kind that law professors love: what is the difference between a question of law and a question of fact?

Deep thoughts on questions of law and fact

Let’s start with the easy part. A pure question of law is a legal issue that can be stated entirely in the abstract, without any reference to the particular facts of a case. Let’s say you’re in a car crash and the question is “what is the statute of limitations for a negligence claim?” That’s a pure question of law.

That doesn’t necessarily mean the question has a simple answer. It just means you can answer the question without knowing anything about any facts. For example, the general rule in Texas would be that you have to file a negligence lawsuit within two years of the car accident.

A pure question of fact, on the other hand, has nothing to do with law. “Did the defendant run a red light?” is a pure question of fact. (There are also “mixed” questions of law and fact, the classic example being whether a defendant was negligent, but let’s put that aside for the moment.)

It gets more complicated when the question applies an abstract legal principle to a particular scenario. Let’s take the question “does the statute of limitations start running at the time of the accident, or when the plaintiff discovered the extent of his injuries?” That sounds more factual, but it’s still a question of law, because it simply applies an abstract principle to a given factual situation.

Now let’s make it harder. My lawyer readers will know the “discovery rule.” The discovery rule is an exception that keeps the limitations clock from starting until the plaintiff discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the injury. Is applying the discovery rule in a particular case a question of law or a question of fact?

This is where judges tend to go wrong. Perhaps nothing provides a better opportunity for superficial judicial analysis than whether an issue is a question of law or fact.

For example, if the judge thinks it’s a question of fact, she will typically write “the discovery rule is a question of fact for the jury,” cite some cases that said it was a question of fact, and be done with it. Similarly, if the judge thinks it’s a question of law, the judge will write “the discovery rule is a question of law,” cite some cases that said that, and move on.

This is superficial, and wrong. If judges would only remember what their law school professors said, they would say the answer is “it depends.”

It depends. Of course, it depends! It depends on what the evidence is. For example, if the undisputed evidence shows that the plaintiff discovered his injury more than two years before filing suit, then it’s a question of law. You’re just applying a legal principle to an undisputed set of facts. But if there is conflicting evidence about when the plaintiff discovered his injury (or should have discovered it), it’s a question of fact.

Pretty simple, right? But trust me, courts mess this up all the time. Sometimes it may just be intellectual laziness. But often it’s more than that.

Does it matter whether it’s a question of law or fact?

You may be wondering why it matters. What difference does it make whether we call an issue a question of law or a question of fact? Isn’t this just philosophical musing?

No. It matters whether an issue is a question of law or fact because that determines who gets to decide the issue. If it’s a question of law, the judge decides. But if it’s a question of fact, that means the factfinder gets to answer the question. Depending on the type of proceeding, the factfinder could be the judge, the jury, or an arbitrator.

Now, I know a lot of my Fivers are stone-cold realists. You may question whether there is any principled distinction between a question of law and a question of fact. You might say that asking “is it a question of law or fact?” is nothing more than asking “does the judge or the jury get to decide the question?”

That would be going too far. The distinction between a question of law and a question of fact is real, even if it is sometimes difficult to draw that line. But it is important to understand that the practical effect of the answer is to determine whether the judge or the jury gets to decide.

Whether the issue is a question of law or question of fact also determines who gets to decide the issue on appeal. Generally, the appellate court will defer to the factfinder on questions of fact but will decide questions of law de novo. “De novo” is a Latin phrase that means “I don’t care what a lowly trial court judge thinks.”[1]

Is the picture coming into focus now? If I’m the judge and I have a certain view of what a fair outcome would be, might that have some effect on whether I characterize an issue as a question of law or question of fact?

Let’s take our statute of limitations example. If I think the case should go to trial, I might be inclined to simply proclaim that the discovery rule is a question of fact for the jury and leave it at that. Conversely, if I think the case has no merit, I might be inclined to say it’s a question of law and grant summary judgment for the defendant.

I’m not necessarily suggesting there is anything sinister about this. Even the most impartial judges will tend to characterize the issue in a way that favors an outcome they sincerely believe is fair and just. That’s true even before you add external forces to the mix—say, campaign contributions from “tort reform” groups or plaintiff’s lawyers.

But there is a better way: it depends. It depends on the evidence. If the relevant evidence is undisputed, it’s a question of law. If the relevant evidence is conflicting, it’s a question of fact.

This proposition, though often ignored, shouldn’t be controversial. If you think it’s wrong, please tell me why.

Let’s apply what we’ve learned 

Now let’s apply this not-so-controversial principle to a typical Texas non-compete.

Texas, like most states, requires a non-compete to be reasonable in time period, geographic area, and scope of activity restrained. So, is the reasonableness of a Texas non-compete a question of law or a question of fact?

You already know where this is headed, but let’s break it down.

What do we mean by “reasonable,” as applied to a non-compete? Fortunately, the Texas non-compete statute gives us a clue. It says the non-compete must have “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 promisee.”[2] For the typical Texas non-compete, which is tied to a confidentiality agreement, reasonableness comes down to whether the limitations are no greater than necessary to protect the company’s goodwill and confidential information.

So how about a three-year time period? Is that reasonably necessary to protect the employer’s goodwill and confidential information? And what about a geographic area of the State of Texas? Is that reasonable?

You’re probably having trouble answering these questions in the abstract. That’s because you don’t know anything about the facts of the case. It would make a difference whether it takes three months or three years for the confidential information to become outdated and useless. It matters whether the company sells products to customers throughout the State of Texas or in just one city.

If you don’t know the answers to these questions, there is no way you can know if the time period and geographic area are reasonable. You simply cannot determine the reasonableness of the non-compete in the abstract.

And yet, many Texas cases recite that the reasonableness of the non-compete is a question of law. As I said earlier, that is either wrong or only partially correct. Reasonableness could only be a question of law if the facts concerning reasonableness are not in dispute. If there is conflicting evidence material to reasonableness, it’s a question of fact.

And I can prove it. My witness is the Texas legislature, and my Exhibit 1 is Section 15.51 of the Texas Business and Commerce Code. It says:

If the primary purpose of the agreement to which the covenant is ancillary is to obligate the promisor to render personal services, for a term or at will, the promisee has the burden of establishing that the covenant meets the criteria specified by Section 15.50 of this code. . . . For the purposes of this subsection, the “burden of establishing” a fact means the burden of persuading the triers of fact that the existence of the fact is more probable than its nonexistence

Let me translate. This means that for a non-compete in a typical employment agreement, the employer has the burden of proving the non-compete is reasonable.

This proves my point that the reasonableness of a non-compete can be a question of fact, provided there is conflicting evidence. How else could there be a burden of proof on the issue? Questions of law don’t have a burden of proof.

Why this matters in non-compete litigation

This explains why I was asking that deposition question about a reasonable time period for the non-compete. I knew it was the employer’s burden to prove that the time period in the contract was reasonable. I wanted to nail down whether the employer had any evidence to offer that the time period was reasonable. He didn’t.

Wait a minute, you say. Even if you’re technically correct, isn’t this just a case of sloppy language? Opinions that say it’s a question of law may still be getting the result right, if the undisputed facts of the case establish that the non-compete was either reasonable or unreasonable.

True. But the issue is not academic. For one thing, treating reasonableness of a non-compete as a question of law tends to favor enforcement of the non-compete. In theory, the judge could just as easily find a non-compete unenforceable as a matter of law. But in practice, the vast majority of cases that say reasonableness is a question of law also say the non-compete was reasonable, and therefore enforceable. So, the outcome of this philosophical issue can make a real practical difference.

Now that I’ve cleared this up, when can we expect Texas appellate courts to stop proclaiming without qualification that the reasonableness of a non-compete is a question of law for the court?

I’d say probably when hell freezes over.

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Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Appellate lawyers call this the “standard of review.” Standard of review is one of those issues that is really, really exciting for appellate lawyers and boring for just about everyone else.

[2] Tex. Bus. & Com. Code § 15.50(a).

Do you have a college degree in restaurant and hotel management? Have I got a deal for you.

Work as an assistant manager at Buc-ee’s, the well-known Texas highway stop with the clean restrooms, massive selection of snacks, and funny billboards. On top of a weekly salary of $862.75, you will get a monthly bonus, I mean, “retention payment,” of 1.2652% of the store’s monthly net profit.

Naturally, your employment will be at-will, meaning Buc-ee’s can fire you at any time for any reason, or for no reason. That’s ok, because you can also quit for any reason, or for no reason.

But here’s the catch. If you quit or get fired in less than four years, or if you don’t give Buc-ee’s written notice at least 6 months before quitting, you have to pay back all of the retention payments you received, plus interest and attorneys’ fees.

In other words, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.

That was the basic deal in Rieves v. Buc-ee’s, a case recently decided by the Houston Court of Appeals (14th District).[1] Rieves, the employee, received about $67,000 in retention payments, paying federal income taxes on them, but quit the job three years in. Buc-ee’s sued her to recover the $67,000 plus interest and attorneys’ fees.

That doesn’t sound fair, you may be thinking, but this is Texas, and a deal’s a deal, right?

Well, yes, “that’s not fair” is usually not a defense to enforcement of a contract, and “unfairness” is not an exception to the at-will employment doctrine.

But it’s not just a question of enforcing the parties’ contract. The public’s interest in free competition is also at stake. That’s why Texas has a statute that says every contract in restraint of trade or commerce is illegal. The statute has an exception for non-competes, but the non-compete has to be reasonable in scope.

So, Rieves argued that the contract’s requirement to pay back the retention payments was an unenforceable restraint of trade, and the Houston Court of Appeals agreed.

Limitations on employee mobility must meet the reasonableness requirement for non-competes

Under Texas case law, the court said, limitations on employee mobility are unenforceable unless they fall within the statutory exception for non-competes. This rule applies not only to provisions that expressly limit employee mobility, but also to damages clauses that impose a “severe economic penalty” on a departing employee. Because the contract imposed a severe economic penalty on Rieves for exercising her right to quit, the court reasoned that the contract was unlawful unless it met the reasonableness requirements for non-competes.

The problem for Buc-ee’s? The contract had no limits on the employee’s repayment obligation based on whether her new employment involved competitive activities or was located within certain areas. Not only that, the contract gave Buc-ee’s the right to enforce the repayment provision even if, for example, Buc-ee’s fired the employee without cause on the last day of the four-year period, or if the employee quit to take a noncompeting job, or no job at all.

This was just too much, even for the relatively conservative 14th Court of Appeals.

“These provisions go far beyond protecting any legitimate competitive interest of Buc-ee’s,” Justice Busby wrote for the court, “impose significant hardship on Rieves by clawing back substantial compensation already paid to her and on which she had paid taxes, and injure the public by limiting choice and mobility of skilled employees.” The court therefore rendered judgment that the repayment provision of the contract was unenforceable.

That sounds like a fairly common-sense application of Texas law, right?

What about ExxonMobil v. Drennen?

But those of you who follow Texas non-compete law may be thinking, what about Drennen?

Exxon Mobil v. Drennen was a Texas Supreme Court case decided in 2014.[2] Technically, it addressed a narrow issue only a lawyer could love: choice of law. The contract at issue in Drennen required an executive to forfeit stock options if he went to work for a competitor. New York law allows that sort of thing, and the legal issue presented was whether the Texas court should apply New York law or Texas law.

I won’t get down in the weeds of the choice of law analysis, but the key was that one step was to ask whether Texas has any “fundamental policy” against this kind of forfeiture provision.

Some of you may recall a certain statute that says something about, what was it, restraints of trade or commerce being unlawful? That kind of sounds like a “fundamental policy” to me.

But the Texas Supreme Court didn’t see it that way. It held in Drennen that there was no fundamental Texas policy that would bar the forfeiture clause, and that cleared the way for New York law to apply.

As explained here, I thought Drennen got it wrong on this point. In my view, Texas courts should take the legislature’s ban on restraints of trade more seriously. But of course I don’t get to make the rules. And while bloggers and pundits are free to criticize, the Texas Courts of Appeals have to follow what the Texas Supreme Court says.

So if Drennen said the forfeiture of employee benefits does not violate Texas public policy, why didn’t that control the outcome in the Buc-ee’s case?

The Buc-ee’s court found that Drennen did not apply. First, the type of compensation at issue was different. In Drennen, it was forfeiture of future unvested stock options, while in Buc-ee’s it was money already paid to the employee, on which she had already paid income taxes.

Second, the Buc-ee’s contract was different because, unlike the stock option provision in Drennen, it did not necessarily reward the employee for her loyalty. The contract required the employee to pay back a substantial part of her compensation even if Buc-ee’s fired her, and the longer she worked at Buc-ee’s, the larger the penalty if she decided to quit.

These sound like reasonable distinctions, but would the Texas Supreme Court agree? I wouldn’t be surprised to see Buc-ee’s petition the Texas Supreme Court to take the case, arguing that it conflicts with Drennen.

Then we may really see if the Texas prohibition of restraints of trade has any teeth.

The Bigger Picture

The Buc-ee’s decision shows that some Texas courts still take the legislature seriously when it says that restraints of trade are unlawful. It’s an important decision, because it restores some balance to the basic social contract that Texas law provides to businesses and employees.

The at-will employment doctrine and the ban on restraints of trade are two sides of this coin. What’s in it for business is they can hire and fire at will, with only some narrow exceptions (like unlawful discrimination).

The at-will employment doctrine is widely known but not fully appreciated. Everybody knows that employers can fire employees at will, yet with most people that knowledge really hasn’t sunk in. In the back of their minds, employees still seem to feel that employers can’t fire them for a bad reason.

But they can, and that’s a big deal. I would even say the at-will employment doctrine is the most serious source of injustice in the workplace in America.[3]

Think about it. At-will employment means you can slave away for the same company for twenty years and get fired because the owner wanted to make room for his son who just got out of college and needs a job. It’s just not fair!

Yet I fully support the at-will employment doctrine. While at-will employment is a source of great injustice on the “micro” level, we accept it as a necessity for its “macro” benefits, which fall into two categories.

First, there is the judicial capability problem. While judges sometimes speak of at-will employment as if it were some immutable law of nature, it isn’t. Courts could adopt a common-law rule that employers must have good cause to fire an employee. But imagine all the lawsuits that would follow. And imagine all the inconsistent and subjective rulings by judges and juries on “good cause.”

Second, we accept at-will employment for its economic benefits. The ability to hire and fire freely boosts overall economic growth and employment, benefitting everyone. If employers could only fire for good cause, think of how reluctant they would be to hire in the first place. At-will employment also encourages employee mobility, which increases competition.

But this gets to the other side of the deal: at-will employment has to be a two-way street. Just as employers can fire for any reason, or for no reason, employees have to be free to say “take this job and shove it.” Not only that, employees must be able to leave and work for a competitor (unless there is a reasonably limited non-compete). That’s the balance that makes at-will employment work.

The basic problem in Buc-ee’s was that the employer tried to upset this balance. Buc-ee’s wanted to have its beef jerky and eat it too: we can fire you any time for any reason, but we’re also going to make it cost-prohibitive for you to decide to leave.

This was just too much for the Houston Court of Appeals. You can’t always get what you want.

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Zach Wolfe (zwolfe@fleckman.com) is a Texas trial lawyer who handles non-compete and trade secret litigation at his firm Fleckman & McGlynn, PLLC. As a litigator he drives around Texas a lot and loves stopping at Buc-ee’s.

These are his opinions, not the opinions of his firm or clients, so don’t cite part of this post against him in an actual case. Every case is different, so don’t rely on this post as legal advice for your case.

[1] Rieves v. Buc-ee’s Ltd., No. 14-15-01061-CV, 2017 WL 4557796 (Tex. App.—Houston [14th Dist.] Oct. 12, 2017).

[2] Exxon Mobil Corp. v. Drennen, 452 S.W.3d 319 (Tex. 2014).

[3] This is not to downplay harassment and discrimination, which are certainly real problems.