Authors' note on the noncompete agreement.

Subsequent to publication of "Outrunning Contractual Noncompete Undertakings ..." in the December Bar Journal, the 11th Circuit let stand a declaratory judgment approving an employee's deliberate strategy of moving from Florida to Georgia, misleading his employer, and racing to the courthouse to take advantage of the federal "first-filed" rule and void his noncompete agreement ("NCA") under Georgia law. Manuel v. Convergys Corp., 2005 U.S. App. LEXIS 24549 (11th Cir. November 15, 2005).

Because the former employer sought to enforce an NCA against an employee living and working in Georgia, the court held Georgia's connections to the action were not "slight or manufactured" and refused to disturb the presumption favoring the "first filed" Georgia suit. However, it also appears the former employer may have erred strategically in arguing for the application of Ohio law and filing the subsequent suit in Ohio, rather than Florida, where the employee had worked and entered into the NCA.