How does a business stop a former employee from poaching the business’ employees after the employee has left employment of the business? Generally, to achieve this goal, employers have entered into a contract with the employee that includes a restriction called a “non-solicitation provision”. In a recent case, The Manitowoc Company, Inc., v. Lanning, the Wisconsin Supreme Court made a landmark decision which imposes significant limitations on employers with respect to non-solicitation provisions in employment contracts pursuant to Wisconsin Statute section 103.465.

Case Background

            I wrote about this case when the Wisconsin Court of Appeals issued its opinion in 2016, but to refresh my regular readers’ memories, here’s a brief summary of the facts of the case:

Lanning was an experienced, well-connected engineer for The Manitowoc Company, Inc. (“Manitowoc”) a company that manufacturers construction cranes and food service equipment. After working for Manitowoc in its construction crane division for over 25 years, Lanning left to work for a competitor. During his time with Manitowoc, he and Manitowoc had executed an agreement by which Lanning agreed that he would not “solicit, induce or encourage any employee(s) to terminate their employment with Manitowoc or to accept employment with any competitor, supplier or customer of Manitowoc.” (emphasis added) for a period of two years after the termination of his employment with Manitowoc.

Within the restricted two-year period after Lanning’s departure, Manitowoc alleged that Lanning breached this covenant by engaging in competitive activities such as actively recruiting (or poaching) some of Manitowoc employees to work for his new company. Manitowoc then sued Lanning for violation of the above quoted provision in the agreement. Lanning argued that the provision was unreasonable and violated Wisconsin Statute section 103.465, (the statute governing restrictive covenants in employment agreements) which would thereby make the whole provision unenforceable.

The Circuit Court ruled that the provision did not violate the statute, but Lanning appealed, and, as explained in my previous post, the Court of Appeals reversed, stating that the non-solicitation provision was unreasonably overbroad and violated section 103.465.

 

The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s Decision

            The Wisconsin Supreme Court agreed with the Court of Appeals, holding that because the clause in the Agreement restricted Lanning from soliciting, inducing, or encouraging any employee of Manitowoc to leave their employment, it was overbroad, and an unreasonable restriction on Lanning that violated Wis. Stat. section 103.465. The Court supported this holding by asserting that common law states that no business has a legally protectable interest in preventing the poaching of ALL of its employees from a stranger, and therefore, the provision attempting to do that is illegal under the statute. The Court went on to state that an employer only has a legally protectable interest in preventing the poaching of some of its employees, and those employees are limited to certain classes. The Court set forth some examples of these classes of employees that might warrant protection, such as top-level employees, employees with special skills or special knowledge important to the employer’s business, or employees with skills that might be difficult to replace. The Court did not elaborate any further beyond those general examples or apply them to Manitowoc, specifically.

Key Takeaways

What does this mean for Wisconsin employers?

  1. The Court for the first time expressly acknowledged what most in the legal community had already predicted—that non-solicitation clauses in employment contracts are subject to the notoriously restrictive Wisconsin statute section 103.465. If there was any question about it, the question is now answered.
  2. The most obvious takeaway is that employers can no longer prohibit a departed employee’s solicitation of “all” employees in non-solicitation clauses. As such, all current agreements with employees containing restrictive covenants should be reviewed. If the agreements contain language prohibiting solicitation of anything other than specific groups of employees, the agreement should be amended, and additional consideration for the amendment must be provided to the employee in exchange for the amendment. Any language prohibiting solicitation of “all” employees should be removed, and all future agreements should be drafted without this broad prohibition to avoid having the agreement ruled unenforceable.
  3. The other major takeaway is that non-solicitation clauses in employment related agreements must now identify specific employees or classes of employees that an employee is prohibited from soliciting after the employment relationship ends. These specific employees or classes of employees must be those in which the employer has a “protectable interest.” Determining what employees fall within these classes may be challenging given that the Court did not provide much guidance on the permissible scope of these classes of employees that warrant protection. This will be fact intensive for each business, and will warrant an in-depth discussion with clients regarding the nature of its employment base. This is likely to be a controversial area of law in the future, probably to be tested soon in the courts given the lack of guidance on this point by the Supreme Court in Lanning.

Final Thoughts

I think this decision creates potentially unintended consequences for small businesses in Wisconsin. A majority of businesses in Wisconsin, and most of our firm’s clients, are small to medium sized businesses. A large business with 13,000 employees like the Manitowoc Company may not actually suffer significant detriment from losing entry level employees, and a restriction preventing solicitation of ALL of those employees probably is broader than necessary to protect its competitive interests. However, the loss of any employee for a small business may be significant. As such, it is possible that a restriction to prevent solicitation of all of a small business’ workforce might be reasonable in certain circumstances, but the Court’s holding now deters them from attempting to assure themselves that reasonable protection in non-solicitation agreements with employees. I am hopeful that the Court has the opportunity soon to clarify this holding as applied to small businesses to avoid these consequences.

There are many open questions still outstanding in this area, and it is inevitable that we’ll get the answers to these questions as they work their way through the courts. In the meantime, businesses will want to ensure they are protecting themselves against potential poaching of their employees to the maximum extent legally permissible. The business attorneys at Schober Schober & Mitchell, S.C. are experienced in drafting employee restrictive covenant agreements and pay close attention to the often-changing landscape of employment restrictive covenant law.

If you or your business need a review of your current employee restrictive covenant agreements or are looking into establishing these agreements in your business, we would be happy to help. Contact me at jmk@schoberlaw.com or visit our website at www.schoberlaw.com if you have any questions.