## Facts

- Nichol operated an ironmongery business and employed Martyn as a traveling sales employee who solicited orders from country shopkeepers.
- Martyn’s employment was set to end at the beginning of the coming year.
- While still employed and continuing his usual rounds for Nichol, Martyn told Nichol’s customers that he intended to begin his own business after Christmas.
- Martyn asked those customers to give him orders on his own account to be filled after his employment with Nichol ended, rather than soliciting their current orders away from Nichol.
- Nichol sued, alleging Martyn wrongfully appropriated Nichol’s customers by soliciting them for Martyn’s future business; Nichol also alleged Martyn enticed other employees to leave, though the decision focused on the customer-solicitation theory.

## Issues

1. Whether an employee breaches a legal duty to the employer by, while still employed, informing the employer’s customers of the employee’s planned competing business and soliciting orders to be executed only after the employment ends.
2. Whether the absence of diverted current orders (during employment) defeats liability for such solicitation.

## Decision

- Judgment for Martyn (defendant).
- The court held it was not unlawful for an employee, while still in service, to solicit the employer’s customers for business to commence after termination of employment, where the employee did not divert present orders due to the employer.
- The court characterized the conduct as potentially improper in manners but not contrary to law on these facts.

## Legal Principles

- An employee’s duty during employment prohibits diversion of the employer’s existing business (including current orders), but does not necessarily forbid arranging future competition.
- Soliciting the employer’s customers for post-employment orders, without interfering with present orders or ongoing transactions belonging to the employer, is not actionable at common law absent additional wrongdoing.
- Moral disapproval of an employee’s conduct does not establish legal liability where the conduct does not violate an enforceable duty or restriction.

## Conclusion

The court declined to impose liability where an employee, still performing his role, sought future orders from the employer’s customers for delivery after the employee left, distinguishing lawful preparation for post-employment competition from unlawful interference with the employer’s current business.


Nichol v. Martyn, 2 Esp. 732 (K.B. 1799)