## Facts

- Motorsports of Conyers, LLC (a Georgia Harley-Davidson dealership) and Motorsports of Durham, LLC (a North Carolina Harley-Davidson dealership) employed Edmund Burbach in senior management.
- In 2016, Burbach signed two employment agreements (one with each dealership) containing identical restrictive covenants and Florida choice-of-law clauses.
- The agreements restricted Burbach for three years after termination from (a) soliciting or approaching any employees or customers of the employers or their affiliates and (b) accepting employment with a competitor, including work “in any capacity,” within a broad geographic area.
- Burbach’s employment ended in 2019, and he later accepted work with a competing Harley-Davidson dealership.
- The employers sued Burbach (and the competitor) seeking to enforce the restrictive covenants and obtained injunctive relief in the trial court after the court applied Florida law.

## Issues

1. Whether a Georgia court may apply a Florida choice-of-law clause to enforce employment restrictive covenants when enforcement would violate Georgia public policy.
2. Whether the restrictive covenants were unreasonable under Georgia standards governing employee restrictive covenants.
3. Whether injunctive relief was proper given the enforceability (or unenforceability) of the restrictive covenants.
4. Whether collateral estoppel barred Burbach from contesting enforceability based on prior litigation involving related entities.

## Decision

- The Court of Appeals reversed the trial court’s grant of injunctive relief.
- The court held the trial court erred in applying Florida law because the restrictive covenants were unreasonable under Georgia standards and therefore contrary to Georgia public policy.
- Because the covenants could not be enforced in Georgia on public-policy grounds, the injunction enforcing them could not stand.

## Legal Principles

- Georgia courts generally respect contractual choice-of-law provisions, but will not apply a foreign state’s law when doing so would contravene Georgia public policy.
- Georgia’s standards for employment restrictive covenants (including statutory policy reflected in Georgia law) are used to assess whether enforcement in Georgia would violate public policy, even where the contract selects another state’s law.
- Restrictive covenants must be reasonable in duration, geographic scope, and scope of prohibited activity; overbroad limits (including sweeping bans on competitive work “in any capacity” and broad non-solicitation of employees/customers of the employer and affiliates) may be unenforceable.
- Injunctive relief may not be based on restrictive covenants that are void or unenforceable under controlling public-policy limitations.

## Conclusion

The Court of Appeals reversed an injunction enforcing Florida-law restrictive covenants, concluding that Georgia public policy barred application of Florida law because the covenants were unreasonable under Georgia’s enforceability standards for employee restrictive covenants.


Burbach v. Motorsports of Conyers, LLC, 363 Ga. App. 188 (2022)