A Virginia Circuit Court recently struck down a noncompete agreement between an employer and a former employee as overbroad in scope.  More after the break.

In this case, the employee, Lawrence, entered into a noncompete agreement with Specialty Marketing upon becoming a shareholder of the company.  The agreement prohibited Lawrence from owning, managing, or being an employee of “any business competitive with Specialty in areas where Specialty has a market for its business.”  About nine months after he was no longer employed by Specialty, Lawrence was hired by another company in a similar position and geographic area as he had with Specialty.  Specialty sued Lawrence for breach of the noncompete agreement, but ultimately lost when the court found the noncompete unenforceable based on two grounds:  first, the agreement’s prohibition against being employed by any business in competition with Specialty was overbroad, and second, the agreement lacked a limitation on geographic scope.

The Virginia Lawyer’s Weekly Blog has a post on the case here.