Login | February 21, 2025
Supreme Court of Ohio declines to hear non-compete case
KEITH ARNOLD
Special to the Legal News
Published: February 19, 2025
The Supreme Court of Ohio has declined to hear an area plumber’s appeal of a lower court ruling that he argued broadens the limitations of non-compete agreements to an extent that it would harm his ability to make a living.
Michael Bartoe, who was employed for 20 years as a plumber for Capital City Mechanical Inc. of Grove City, left the company in January 2021 to start his own plumbing company.
“A non-compete covenant is no greater than is required to protect the former employer’s legitimate business interests,” Bartoe’s memorandum seeking jurisdiction began. “Thus, a non-compete agreement cannot go beyond the customers the former employee has contact with, while working for the former employer.”
Subsequent to his departure, Capital City sent Bartoe a cease-and-desist letter, alleging Bartoe violated the non-compete clause he had signed as a condition of his employment with the firm, according to case background.
Capital City followed up by filing a complaint in Franklin County Common Pleas Court, accusing Bartoe of a breach of the non-compete clause after he had performed plumbing work for certain companies. In his defense, Bartoe testified that he worked in one of six sections at Capital City and had no contact with customers who were exclusive to other divisions.
He further argued that CCM maintained no customer list and therefore did not provide him one after his employment.
Bartoe testified that the company put him in an unfair situation, leaving him to guess for whom he could work and punishing him if he guessed wrong.
“The primary dispute in this case is over several widely-varying definitions of the word: customer in the non-compete clause,” the filing continued. “Due to these many disparate definitions, Bartoe argued the definition … is ambiguous.”
Capital City argued that a customer “is any business transacting with (the company) and not just the ones Bartoe had a relationship with or interacted with,” case background provided.
The trial court granted Capital City summary judgment, finding that Bartoe violated terms of the non-compete agreement.
A Tenth District Court of Appeals panel affirmed the lower court ruling, noting that the trial court had completed a “fact-intensive review.”
“The problem with relying entirely on the trial court’s decision on summary judgment, is that the trial court failed to apply Ohio law on non-compete agreements,” the memorandum continued. “A former employee should never be punished for working for a ‘customer’ of his former employer, when he has no relationship with that company, and no knowledge of that company’s relationship with the former employer.”
In its filing opposing Supreme Court jurisdiction in the matter, Capital City wrote that the appellate panel properly rejected Bartoe’s argument, having found that Bartoe as an employee of the company possessed specialized knowledge about operations, methodologies and relationships.
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