Question
Jake is the owner of a local State Farm Insurance branch. Jake has always worked on his own, and he has been very successful as
Jake is the owner of a local State Farm Insurance branch. Jake has always worked on his own, and he has been very successful as a business owner and insurance salesman, but he is getting older, so he recently hired a new employee, Tommy, to be a junior insurance associate. Jake really likes Tommy, and he plans to mentor him, teach him all of his sales techniques, and hopefully sell his business to Tommy one day. A few days after Tommy started working for Jake, Jake realized that he will be sharing a significant amount of competitive information with Tommy which Tommy could use to compete against Jake if he were to leave Jake's employment. Therefore, Jake asked Tommy to sign a non-compete agreement which provides that, if Tommy leaves Jake's business, Tommy is prohibited from working in the insurance industry anywhere in the United States for five years after he ceases to be employed by Jake. Jake prepared the non-compete agreement and gave it to Tommy to sign. When Jake gave Tommy the agreement, he mentioned to Tommy that if he doesn't sign the agreement within three days Jake will be forced to fire him. Tommy said he loves working for Jake and he has no plans of leaving, so he happily signed the non-compete agreement and gave it back to Jake. Five months later, Tommy is fed-up with Jake micro-managing him, and he recently received an offer to start his own Nationwide insurance branch in the city next to Jake's insurance branch. Can Tommy take the Nationwide offer without being in breach of his agreement with Jake?
- Issue (i.e., what is the legal issue presented in the fact pattern?):
- Rule (i.e., describe the legal rule(s) that would be best applied to resolve the issue):
- Analysis and Conclusion (i.e., applythe rule(s) you specify above to the facts presented in the hypothetical to reach a final conclusion as to how the issue will likely be resolved):
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