Nike Inc. sued a former senior researcher on March 10, a few days after she resigned to join Nfinity, the maker of basketball, volleyball and cheerleading shoes.
In a lawsuit filed in Gwinnett County Superior Court in Lawrenceville, GA, Nike alleges that Helen Woo’s plan to lead “innovation and research” at Nfinity, according to The Oregonian. Nike claims the move violated the non-compete agreement she signed with Nike.
Woo ended her 13-year career at Nike on March 8 when she notified her
boss that she was leaving to join Nfinity. Woo’s supervisors thought at
the time that Woo had taken a week of vacation. In fact, Woo informed
them, she had already moved to Atlanta.
Woo had been a senior researcher at Nike’s Sports Research Laboratory.
In that role, Nike claimed, she was privy to many of the company’s most
closely held product development plans.
Nike’s non-compete agreement requires Woo to essentially sit out an
entire year before going to work for a competitor. As part of the
agreement, Nike agreed to pay Woo’s salary for the year she took off.
In response, Woo and Nfinity filed a lawsuit in Gwinnett County Superior Court, asking the Georgia court to declare Nike’s non-compete unenforceable and unlawful.
“Were flattered that Nike considers our five-employee, $5
million-a-year company a competitor,” Eric Lang, an Atlanta attorney
representing both Woo and Nfinity, said in court papers, according to
The Oregonian. But he said Nike’s non-compete clause goes against
Georgia public policy. He argued that Georgia courts have historically
been unreceptive to any restrictions on employees right to work and
employers right to hire.
Lang said the Nike non-compete is so broad it would prohibit Woo from
“going to work as a janitor in a T-shirt store.”
