{"id":738,"date":"2015-08-05T13:54:20","date_gmt":"2015-08-05T13:54:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/social-media-and-non-solicitation-covenants\/"},"modified":"2015-08-05T13:54:20","modified_gmt":"2015-08-05T13:54:20","slug":"social-media-and-non-solicitation-covenants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/social-media-and-non-solicitation-covenants\/","title":{"rendered":"Social Media and Non-Solicitation Covenants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">We have previously discussed whether sending an announcement constitutes violation of a non-solicitation covenant and whether Facebook and LinkedIn posts can constitute a breach of restrictive covenant.[1]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">This issue was addressed by a Federal District Court in Oklahoma in <em>Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. v. Cahill<\/em>, 924 F. Supp. 2d 1281 (2013).\u00a0 The issue in that case was whether the defendant\u2019s Facebook post on his public, personal account constituted solicitation under the terms of his non-solicitation agreement with his former employer.\u00a0 The former employer complained that the Facebook posts touted the benefits of a competing product and the employee\u2019s expression of professional satisfaction with the competing product constituted solicitation because some of the defendant\u2019s Facebook \u201cfriends\u201d were also sales associates of his former employer and they viewed the defendant\u2019s posts.\u00a0 The court found that the posts were more akin to Facebook announcements that were not found to be solicitations in prior cases.\u00a0 The court specifically cited <em>Invidia, LLC v. DiFonzo<\/em>, 2012 WL 55576406 (Mass Super. October 22, 2012), a case cited in our <a href=\"\/can-facebook-and-linkedin-posts-constitute-a-breach-of-a-restrictive-covenant\/\">previous blog post<\/a>.\u00a0The court also cited <em>Enhanced Network Solutions Group, Inc. v. Hypersonic Technologies Corp<\/em>., 951 N.E.2d 265 (Ind. Ct. App. 2011) in which the Indiana Court of Appeals found that posting an employment opportunity on a LinkedIn website that could be viewed by a contractually prohibited class did not constitute solicitation.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">As a result, the court in <em>Cahill<\/em> found that the former employer had not shown it was likely to succeed on the merits of its breach of contract claim regarding the defendant\u2019s Facebook posts or that it would suffer irreparable harm. Therefore, the defendant was not enjoined from posting on his Facebook wall regarding the competing product.\u00a0 The court noted there was no evidence that the defendant\u2019s Facebook posts had resulted in a departure of any other employees, and there was not any evidence indicating that the Defendant was targeting employees of his former employer by posting directly on their walls or through private messaging.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">The law with respect to social media and restrictive covenants is still developing, but traditional principals are generally being used by the courts in addressing these situations.\u00a0 Typically, if a post is nothing more than a general announcement, the courts are likely to find it does not constitute affirmative solicitation.\u00a0 However, if a more targeted approach is used then an employee could cross the line into prohibited solicitation.\u00a0 As in any situation, knowing the prohibitions in any restrictive covenant agreement is the key to ensuring compliance.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\">[1]<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/does-sending-an-announcement-constitute-solicitation\/\">https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/does-sending-an-announcement-constitute-solicitation\/<\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/can-facebook-and-linkedin-posts-constitute-a-breach-of-a-restrictive-covenant\/\">https:\/\/www.bfvlaw.com\/can-facebook-and-linkedin-posts-constitute-a-breach-of-a-             restrictive-covenant\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We have previously discussed whether sending an announcement constitutes violation of a non-solicitation covenant and whether Facebook and LinkedIn posts can constitute a breach of restrictive covenant.[1] This issue was addressed by a Federal District Court in Oklahoma in Pre-Paid Legal Services, Inc. v. Cahill, 924 F. Supp. 2d 1281 (2013).\u00a0 The issue in that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_mo_disable_npp":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,9],"tags":[25,121],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v22.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Social Media and Non-Solicitation Covenants<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Social Media and Non-Solicitation Covenants: The issue in that case was whether the defendant\u2019s Facebook post on his public, personal account constituted solicitation under the terms of his non-solicitation agreement with his former employer.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, 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