Pre-Litigation Considerations


As regular readers of this blog know, a day that is scheduled to be filled with relatively routine and non-controversial matters can get turned upside and require immediate action without any advance notice. One such situation occurs when information comes to light that an employee is unfit to continue in his or her current position and should be terminated. Even if in-house counsel and the business decision-makers have complete confidence that the information justifies termination, however, there is a risk associated with not giving the employee a chance to at least explain his or her actions.… Keep reading

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Not spelling out in your agreements, even in informal agreements, where disputes can be resolved and what law will govern them can lead to some unhappy results. That is exactly the position that United Excel Corporation and its president, Ky Hornbaker, now find themselves.… Keep reading

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One of my law school classmates asked me several month ago about the merits of entering into a joint defense agreement with another party to protect communications he had with that party’s counsel in connection with a potential dispute with a third company. He was concerned that entering into such a joint defense agreement might make his client and its ally look guilty. I told him that no formal agreement was necessary; the key was whether the communications concerned a matter of common interest to the parties communicating. Last week, I happened to come across The Hilsinger Co. v. Eyeego, LLC, which put a new spin on what the judge in that case referred to as the “Community of Interest Privilege.”… Keep reading


During the dog days of summer, anything with the word “freeze” may sound appealing. But if the freeze is a “trustee process attachment” (tying up a bank or other institutional account), a whole different set of emotions can be evoked. As I discussed in Gain Leverage by Freezing Bank Accounts – Part I and Part II, knowing the law surrounding trustee process attachments can create or defuse significant and sometimes dispositive leverage. Further, and as the Federal District Court reminded us recently in DeBenedictis v. Dougherty, the speed with which a party acts or reacts when a trustee process is sought can be critical.… Keep reading

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In order to obtain a an injunction under federal law, the moving party has to show each of the following:

(i) It has a likelihood of success on the merits of its claim.

(ii) Without injunctive relief, it would risk suffering irreparable harm.

(iii) Such harm outweighs the irreparable harm that the non-moving party would suffer if an injunction were to enter.

(iv) Entering an injunction is in the public interest.

In addition, however, Rule 65(c)  of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure states that:

The court may issue a preliminary injunction or a temporary restraining order only if the movant gives security in an amount that the court considers proper to pay the costs and damages sustained by any party found to have been wrongfully enjoined or restrained.

Indeed, as a recent case from the District of Massachusetts confirms, this is no small technicality, and something to which any company should give due consideration before having its outside litigation counsel seek injunctive relief.… Keep reading

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When seeking preliminary injunctive relief to enforce a non-compete, the moving party is often focused on how obvious it is that the defendant breached the parties’ agreement. As 7-Eleven recently learned, however, even when there is a valid and enforceable noncompetition provision and a clear breach of it, unless you can show that you will suffer irreparable harm without an injunction, and that such harm outweighs the irreparable harm to the defendant that an injunction would inflict, a court will not issue injunctive relief. … Keep reading


In today’s litigious world, it is all too common for a disgruntled former business partner to file a lawsuit based on legally weak, if not outright frivolous, claims of wrongdoing. One common reaction is to fight fire with fire by filing counterclaims for abuse of process and/or other similar causes of action. While there is a time and place for pursuing such counterclaims, they should be carefully vetted and not instituted based on emotion and/or simply to create leverage. Indeed, as the defendant in Barnum v. Tubifi, Inc. learned just last month, filing a retaliatory counterclaim can result not just in a little wasted time and money, but could lead to court imposed sanctions.… Keep reading

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While it may not be standard practice when drafting contracts to include a clause stating that “if litigation between the parties ensues the prevailing party will recover its legal fees,” such provisions do appear in a variety of contracts from time to time. A recent First Circuit opinion, Thompson v. Cloud, involves such a clause and also serves as a good reminder that it can be dangerous to take lightly even seemingly simple provisions in an agreement.… Keep reading

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It is not unusual for a plaintiff to have the ability to choose from at least two states when deciding the venue of a litigation. In such situations, many automatically choose to file suit in their home state, without giving much thought to potential advantages or disadvantages beyond having a home field advantage and/or forcing their adversary to travel long-distance.  While the substantive law applicable to an underlying dispute often is the same no matter where suit is brought (although even this is far from a hard and fast rule), below are three reasons why Massachusetts might be an attractive choice for your next lawsuit.… Keep reading

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In a prior blog post Three Issues In-House Counsel Should Raise Before Asking Employees To Sign Non-Competes, my co-publisher, Shep Davidson, provided suggestions to help in-house counsel ensure that non-competition restrictions on employees were appropriate and enforceable.

As it is Valentine’s Day, we look at three ways in which enforcement of non-competition agreements is like dating.

1.  Has there been a material change in the relationship?  Massachusetts courts have long held that a material change in the terms and conditions of an employee’s employment will void an otherwise valid non-competition agreement.  What constitutes a material change, however, can vary widely depending upon which judge is hearing the case.  Some judges have applied the material change doctrine only where the change was adverse to the employee (Grace Hunt IT Solutions, LLC v. SIS Software, LLC, 29 Mass. L. Rptr. 460, 2012 WL 108825 (Mass. Super. 2012; Lauriat, J.); R.E. Moulton, Inc. v. Lee, 18 Mass. L. Rptr. 157, 2004 WL 1894910 (Mass. Super. 2004; Kottmeyer, J.).  Other judges have applied the material change where the employee had been promoted, demoted and promoted again (Akibia, Inc. v. Hood, No. SUCV201202974F (Mass. Super. Ct. Oct. 09, 2012); Lycos, Inc. v. Jackson, … Keep reading

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