Rival Sports Agencies' Noncompete Row Sent To Fed. Court
by
Joseph C. Maya on Feb. 24, 2017
Employment Employment Labor Law Employment Employment Contracts
Summary: This blog post is on the topic of employee non-compete agreements and their more frequent use.
Contact the experienced employment law attorneys at Maya Murphy, P.C. today at (203) 221-3100 or JMaya@Mayalaw.com
In a case removed from Texas state court Friday, sports management agency Select Sports Group I has sued rival agency Impact Sports, asking the court to declare that the former Impact employee who now owns Select Sports is not in violation of a noncompete agreement, because he never signed it.
Sean Kiernan, the owner of Houston-based SSG I who formerly worked for Florida-based Impact Sports, told Texas federal court that he and SSG I received written notice from Impact in July 2014 alleging he had violated a two-year noncompetition agreement by joining SSG I.
Kiernan and SSG I in August 2014 filed suit seeking a declaratory judgment that no agreement existed, but the case was stayed for more than a year pending arbitration before the National Football League Players Association. In a first amended petition filed in August, Kiernan and SSG I told the court that its intervention is needed to end the dispute.
“After commencement of this lawsuit, Impact produced what it purported to be a noncompete agreement between Kiernan and Impact Sports,” the petition reads. “That agreement, however, is not valid because Kiernan did not sign it and, in fact, denies execution of the agreement in its entirety. Kiernan was out of the country on the day Impact claims he signed the agreement.”
In his August 2014 petition, Kiernan told the court about the correspondence it received from Impact, alleging he and SSG I had violated the noncompete agreement as it related to more than a dozen National Football League players and Canadian Football League players that it counted among its clients.
The list of clients in one correspondence dated July 21, 2014, identified several clients allegedly affected by the noncompete, including NFL stars such as Travis Benjamin, Devonta Freeman, and Kareem Jackson. That same letter named other former employees of Impact Sports also allegedly in violation of noncompete contracts — Tony Fleming, Matt Revich and Ron Butler.
According to court files, days after Kiernan filed his suit in state court in Texas seeking a declaration that no agreement existed, Impact filed two lawsuits against SSG I in state court in Florida. In October 2014, pending the arbitration before the NFLPA, the court stayed all litigation in the matter, including the Texas action.
Then in August 2016, Kiernan told the court that it wanted permission to amend its petition to add defendants as well as claims for tortious interference. Kiernan told the court the arbitration concluded in August 2015, when the arbitrator issued his final award and since then he has been working to get the stay lifted.
A hearing in Florida took place regarding lifting the stay on Aug. 4, where the court determined in light of the arbitration that it no longer had jurisdiction over the case.
In the first amended petition filed Aug. 23, Kiernan named as defendants Mitchell Frankel, the president of Impact; Ronald Butler, an agent and owner of Sofla Sports LLC; and Steven Sciarretta, a manager of Sofla. Kiernan told the court that all three are aware of Fleming, and know he signed a noncompete with SSG I. Kiernan alleges that in 2014 Fleming joined SSG I and signed a noncompete agreement.
“Just weeks after agreeing to these contracts and receiving access to SSG I's confidential and proprietary information, Fleming resigned from SSG I to resume working for his former employer, Impact Sports — a direct competitor of SSG I. ”
Frankel, Butler and Sciarretta, he told the court, “encouraged, assisted and directed Fleming to violate his contractual obligations by working for Impact Sports and by actively soliciting and recruiting SSG I's employees and clients on behalf of Impact Sports.”
Counsel for Impact Sports declined to comment Friday and counsel for Select Sports did not immediately return a call Friday evening.
If you have any questions regarding noncompetes and would like to explore your employment law options, contact the experienced employment law attorneys today at 203-221-3100, or by email at JMaya@mayalaw.com. We have the experience and knowledge you need at this critical juncture. We serve clients in both New York and Connecticut including New Canaan, Bridgeport, White Plains, and Darien.
Source- http://www.law360.com/articles/851920/rival-sports-agencies-noncompete-row-sent-to-fed-court
