Fredrikson litigators chalked up a significant victory for our client Traffic Tech in the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals on a case that had been litigated in Ohio federal court for some time.
Traffic Tech, a third-party logistics company, hired an employee who had signed a non-compete/non-solicit agreement with his former employer, Total Quality Logistics (TQL), one of the largest privately held freight brokerage firms in the nation. TQL happens to be one of the most litigious companies in the industry when it comes to non-competes, having filed over 100 such lawsuits in the past.
After a rather tortuous and contentious procedural history in this case, Fredrikson raised an “unclean hands” defense to enforcement of the contract based on TQL’s violations of wage and hour laws. TQL dodged discovery on this defense by filing a motion to compel arbitration—seeking an order requiring the defendants to arbitrate the unclean hands defense. That motion was promptly denied. Undeterred, TQL took an immediate appeal to the Sixth Circuit, prompting a stay of the case, and then leveraged the appeal to convince a Federal District Court judge to convert the temporary restraining order against our client into a preliminary injunction—without a hearing or further briefing. The defendants cross appealed the injunction since it severely impaired our client’s right to compete fairly in the industry.
After full briefing and oral argument on both appeals, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a unanimous order in our client’s favor on BOTH appeals and remanded to the district court to consider damages to our clients for the wrongful injunction.
This victory in the Sixth Circuit further exemplifies Fredrikson’s successful representation of clients around the country on non-compete matters. In the past 24 months, Fredrikson non-compete litigators have chalked up victories in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, Florida Federal Court, Florida State Court, Illinois Federal District Court, Ohio State Court, Michigan State Court, Minnesota State Court and Minnesota Federal Court, among others.
