Hair today gone tommorrow. I couldn’t resist.

Raymond Salons Ltd. v. Janmohamed, 2005 BCSC 1809, concerns a hair dresser who starts up a salon business contrary to the language of a non-competition agreement signed with the former employer.

The non-competition clause stated that the employee should not compete with the employer within a 2 mile radius of the employer’s business for a one year period after the employee resigned.

The employee resigned and opened a hair salon 1.8 miles away from the employer’s business.

The Court denied the employer’s injunction application: the harm inflicted on the employer by the employee’s activity was minimal compared to the harm that would occur to the employee on granting the injunction.

Remember when obtaining an injunction on non-competition covenants: don’t quantify your damages, do show some form of significant harm, don’t ask for the injunction just for the sake of making a point, make sure that the restrictive covenant is geographically and temporally reasonable, and don’t prevent someone from earning a livelihood.