Law Assignment 25

Antonio Jones became employed by Apex Alarm Company. Apex is an Alabama corporation

with its headquarters and its principle place of business in Birmingham. Mr. Jones was a

resident of Georgia. He was never a resident of Alabama. He had been to Alabama once for

training, but that was his only personal contact with Alabama.

Because Mr. Jones was employed by an Alabama company, he was an employee-at-will and he

had no true employment contract. However, he did sign a non-compete covenant and a

confidentiality agreement covering trade secrets, etc. Apex’s market included the states of

Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia, and Tennessee. Because this was an industry that was highly

competitive, the non-compete clause provided that, if Mr. Jones quit or was terminated, he

could not work in that same industry for a period of 2 years. The geographic scope of the non-

compete covered all states east of the Mississippi River.

Mr. Jones was approached by Wallace Kilgore, the CEO of Armed Protection, a competitor of

Apex headquartered in Georgia with it principal place of business in Atlanta. Mr. Kilgore

offered Mr. Jones a position, to include an employment contract, if he would quit Apex and

bring Apex’s customer list and other trade secrets 3 with him.

The law firm of Alston Byrd in Atlanta serves as outside counsel for Armed Protection. Mr.

David Buck, one of the senior partners, serves as the partner in charge of Armed Protection’s

account. He helped Mr. Kilgore to write the letter to Mr. Jones offering this position,

structuring the offer and its terms, and drafting the proposed employment contract.

Mr. Jones considered the offer and told Mr. Kilgore that he would take the offer. In order to

get the customer list and the other trade secrets, Mr. Jones had to access a server that was in

Birmingham. Mr. Jones was familiar with the process necessary to do that because of his time

with Apex.

He accessed the server in Birmingham from his residential location in Georgia. He got the

information that Mr. Kilgore wanted and then quit Apex.

Apex has now sued Mr. Jones, Mr. Kilgore, and Armed Protection in the Jefferson County Circuit

Court for trade secret theft (Code of Alabama § 8-27-2) (Jones, Kilgore, and Armed Protection);

breach of the non-compete covenant (Jones); and Tortious Interference (Kilgore and Armed

Protection). Counsel for the defendants has now removed the case to the Federal District Court

in the Northern District of Alabama (Birmingham) based on Diversity of Citizenship.

What are the legal issue in this fact pattern? Identify the relevant facts, the applicable legal

rules and principles, analyze the issues, and provide your conclusions.

at least 2 pages