A Kidney For Your Wife

The Mississippi Court of Appeals has held that a covenant not to be compete was reasonable and enforceable, reversing the judgment of the lower court. The circumstances of the case are a bit unusual, if not unique.

The employee went to work with the company as a teenager with little prior work experience. She was a broker of meat and poultry products between buyers ans sellers throughout the nation. At the outset, she signed a covenant not to compete with the company if she departed.

She married the son of the owners of the business. He got sick and needed a kidney transplant. A close friend donated a kidney. The donor and the employee had an affair after the transplant operation. The husband learned of the affair. He took the news badly. They divorced with a degree of acrimony and she left her job with the business.

The litigation here involves her employment by a direct competitor. (Mike Frisch)