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You might think of making popcorn as a fairly simple process: you pop the popcorn, coat it in your flavor of choice, package it and sell it. But the fact is that snack food manufacturers invest an incredible amount of time, money, and resources into crafting recipes that are perfectly addictive, then test and retest those recipes before they start putting them on shelves.

Garrett Popcorn Shops says it guards the secret to its popcorn recipes so closely that only three employees are given access to the recipes and they have to prove their identity with a fingerprint scan before they can access the recipes.

Aisha Putnam was one of the three employees with access to Garrett Popcorn Shops’ incredibly valuable recipes in the four years she worked as the company’s director of research and development. She was fired in early March of this year, but she got a heads up that she was going to be fired and so she allegedly stole more than 5,400 files using a USB drive and her personal email. The files allegedly contained everything that had ever been shared with her and/or stored on her computer: from the company’s top secret recipes and production processes to pricing information, supplier information, distribution agreements, and market research. Continue reading ›

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Have you ever been so excited to receive a job offer that you signed the employment contract without doing much more than skimming it (if that)? It’s a common story, and there’s a reason the employment contract tends to be the last step in the process – sometimes even coming after the employee has already started working their new job.

If you’ve ever found yourself in the situation described above and you weren’t working in a state like California (which bans non-compete agreements), then the employment contract you signed probably included a clause forbidding you from going to work for a competitor. How much your contract prohibited any chances of employment you had in the future would have depended on the company, but many employers (especially large corporations) have been getting increasingly aggressive with their non-compete agreements in recent years and legislators all over the country have been retaliating. Continue reading ›

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Despite the strides we’ve made towards gender equality, men’s careers are still typically seen as more valuable than women’s careers, not only in the form of higher salaries but also in the form of prioritizing men’s careers over women’s safety. This is true in almost every industry, but especially in college sports. Because college sports teams regularly bring in millions of dollars for their schools, colleges and universities often go to great lengths to protect their athletes and their athletic programs – even when it means sacrificing the educations and careers of female students.

Title IX is a federal law that was enacted to put a stop to these kinds of dangerous and discriminatory practices so women could feel safe on campus, and yet many women still struggle to access their rights under this federal protection. While many colleges all over the country have been accused of denying female students their rights under Title IX, Michigan State University is the latest to face a lawsuit alleging it denied rights guaranteed under Title IX to female students by actively discouraging them from reporting sexual harassment and assault conducted by members of the school’s athletic program. Continue reading ›

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Most people know better than to just throw their electronics in the trash. Instead, they should be responsibly recycled, which is where companies like Intercon come in. As technology evolves faster than ever and objects become obsolete almost as soon as they’re introduced to the market, Brian Brundage saw an opportunity to make some major profits for his company, Intercon.

Most people just don’t want to deal with the hassle of trying to figure out how to properly dispose of their electronics. They’d much rather hand their electronics off to a third party and trust they’ll recycle the old electronics responsibly. But what if the company they trust to recycle their used electronics isn’t as trustworthy as it seems?

Brundage’s company, Intercon, was supposed to be the company that would take used electronics off the hands of people and the corporations they ran. Intercon claimed their operations were eco-friendly and that none of the electronics they took went into a landfill when, in fact, much of the e-waste they took from their clients either went into a landfill, to third parties in China, or to other places that were equally unfriendly to the environment. Continue reading ›

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Any time you need photos for any kind of marketing material, but don’t want to spend a fortune on a professional photographer, you probably go online and search for photos that are either in the public domain (and can, therefore, be used for free) or photos with licenses that can be bought for a price that fits your budget. But how can you tell if the entity you’re paying for the rights to the photo really has the license?

Getty is the go-to source of high quality, affordable photos for many people. You pay them a small fee for the license of the photo you want and you’re free to use it within the restrictions of the license. Except, according to a recent proposed consumer class action lawsuit against Getty, you were always free to use some of those photos without having to pay Getty anything. Continue reading ›

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Earlier this month, a Florida daycare responded to a negative online review left by parents of a child that until recently attended the daycare by serving the parents who left the review with a defamation lawsuit. The parents, Marc LaRocco and Kimberly Moore, left the review after they claim the daycare, The Learning Experience, repeatedly fed their son Owen dairy despite being notified that the child had an allergy to milk.

The parents of the child who attended The Learning Experience daycare in Sunrise, Florida claim that they notified the daycare upon enrolling their son that he was allergic to milk. Despite this, the parents claim that the daycare sent them pictures on numerous occasions of their son eating foods containing dairy. The parents claim that their son suffered rashes and vomiting as a result.

After removing their son from the daycare, the parents took to social media to describe what they claim was their experience at The Learning Experience in Sunrise, Florida. In lengthy online reviews, the couple made statements, according to the complaint, such as: “The Learning Experience- Sunrise is ill-equipped to handle children with any type of special needs.” The complaint also alleges that the couple wrote that: “This school needs a complete overhaul in training and management” and “If you value your child’s life, do not allow them to attend this facility.” The daycare responded to the reviews by filing a lawsuit claiming that the statements were “false and injurious” false and made with “reckless disregard for the truth.” The daycare alleges that the “statements were communicated to at least 500,000 third parties” and “negatively impacted (The Learning Experience’s) trustworthiness and character.” A CBS affiliate in Miami ran a story about the lawsuit and interviewed the parents. That story and the interview can be found below:

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A fan emailed MomoMilk LLC last fall, excited because she had heard they were opening a store in her home town of Chicago. But she was soon disappointed when she realized it was not the nationally recognized bakery that was coming to Chicago, but another company altogether taking advantage of the Milk Bar trademark and brand recognition.

A few years ago, chef Christina Tosi started a restaurant and bakery called “Milk Bar” in New York City, which features shakes, milk cookies, cakes, pies, and a variety of cereal products. The bakery was an instant success and was soon opening other stores throughout the city, then in other cities across the country. It also works with third-party distributors and sells its delicious products through its website. Although it does not currently have a store in Chicago, Tosi has publicly spoken in interviews about the fact that she has been considering opening new stores in cities like Chicago and Miami where the brand has a strong fan base.

The famous bakery operates under the name MomoMilk LLC and it has owned the trademark to the stylized milk since 2014. Now another restaurant has recently opened in Chicago, also calling itself “Milk Bar” and using the trademarked style milk that MomoMilk has been using in all its branding materials for the past five years. Continue reading ›

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The Illinois Appellate recently affirmed a two-year bright-line continued employment rule for adequate consideration in non-compete cases if the only consideration is continued employment. Many, but not all, of the federal district courts in Illinois, do not follow this bright-line rule predicting that the Illinois Supreme Court will not follow it.  The Illinois Supreme Court has not yet addressed the issue. You can read the most recent Illinois Appellate decision here.  You can also listen below to the oral argument held in the Appellate Court before it reached this decision:

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New Washington Law Makes Sweeping Changes to Non-Compete Agreement Law 

Non-compete law in the state of Washington underwent sweeping changes last week with the signing into law of HB1450 (“Washington Non-Compete Act”) which targets the use of restrictive covenants within the state. The new law regulates the use and scope of non-competition agreements with both employees and independent contractors and restricts the use of non-poaching agreements in franchise agreements as well as policies against moonlighting. The new law takes effect on January 1, 2020.

Under the new law, a non-competition covenant will be void and unenforceable unless the following criteria are met:

  1. If the covenant is entered into at the commencement of employment, it must be disclosed in writing to the employee by no later than the date of the employee’s acceptance of the offer of employment;
  1. If the covenant is entered into at the outset of employment but will not take effect until a later date due to a foreseeable change in the employee’s compensation, the agreement must specifically disclose that it may be enforceable at a future time;
  1. If the covenant is entered into after the commencement of employment, it must be supported by additional consideration;
  1. The worker’s annual earnings must exceed $100,000 (in the case of an employee) or $250,000 (in the case of an independent contractor)based upon the income reflected in Box 1 of an employee’s IRS Form W-2 or an independent contractor’s IRS Form 1099; and
  1. The post-separation duration of the non-compete must last no longer than 18 months unless the employer can show by clear and convincing evidence that a longer duration is necessary to protect its business or goodwill.

The new law defines the term “non-competition covenant” to expressly carve out certain types of restrictive covenants such as employee and customer non-solicitation covenants, confidentiality/non-disclosure covenants, and covenants relating to the purchase or sale of a business or franchise. Continue reading ›

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