The Hamilton-Ryker Group, LLC v. Tammy L. Keymon

This appeal involves a noncompete agreement and the Trade Secrets Act. The defendant employee worked for fourteen years for the plaintiff employer. The employee executed a covenant not to compete, prohibiting the employee from soliciting the employer’s clients for one year after termination. During her employment, the employee became the contact person for a particular customer. The defendant employee was temporarily laid off. The day after the layoff, the employee and the customer entered into an arrangement under which the laid off employee performed the same work for the customer that the employer had been performing. The employee then emailed numerous documents related to the customer from her work email address to her personal email address. After that, the customer ended the business relationship with the plaintiff employer. Subsequently, the employer sued the employee for, inter alia, breach of contract, misappropriation of confidential information, and violation of Tennessee’s Trade Secrets Act. The trial court entered judgment for the employer on all counts; the damages award included over $900,000 as doubled damages under the Trade Secrets Act. The employee now appeals. We affirm, finding that the covenant not to compete was enforceable despite the lack of any territorial limitation, that the information emailed to the employee’s personal email was a trade secret, and that the evidence supports the award of damages.