Interesting article at Nixon Peabody about TEKsystems Inc. v. Hammernick et al.

This is a new lawsuit in Minnesota which says 3 former employees violated the terms of their non-compete, non-solicitation & non-disclosure agreement because they ‘connected’ with previous clients via Linkedin.

There is more than just ‘connecting’ as the article prints an email the former employee sent via Linkedin but I want to concentrate on the ‘connecting’.

It’s now pretty standard to connect online with your co-workers. And if it’s not via Linkedin then there’s connection on Twitter or Facebook or Foursquare or Flickr or Dopplr or whatever other sites will be launching in the future. Is connecting the equivilent to bumping into someone on the street? Is it the same as picking up the phone? Is it a public advertising message? Or an email?

I’m not sure how the act of connecting would equal solicitation but it seems that’s what’s being argued.

More fascinating is… what does this mean if you’re already connected (prior to leaving the company)? Do you need to un-follow? Or rather do you need to tell the person to stop following you (as you don’t always control who follows you)? Will we see new blocking tools? Should you de-friend the folks you worked with or came in contact with during that employment? Is this a new product opportunity for Linkedin (tick the boxes to select which of your contacts are affected and enter the length of your agreement here. We’ll prevent you from talking until then!)

And if you do need to de-friend… what’s that do for your mental state? What happens when the people you’ve become friends with, seen every day, gone to parties with, read tweets & status & look at pix online are suddenly unavailable due to an employment contract. Has anyone seen research in this area? A quick search didn’t find anything. Somehow I suspect (or hope) this would be considered an unfair hardship well beyond the corporation’s rights.

I can only hope the judge & other people involved in deciding cases like these understand social media, are active participants on these sites or have the foresight to bring in their own experts to explain the situation.

BTW, I’m obviously not an employment lawyer so don’t take any of this as advice or a comment on this particular case… it’s a musing on where things could be going.