When South Florida English literature teacher Nicholas James was offered a job at a new school, he didn't expect to lose the opportunity because lawyers threatened litigation over alleged trade secret issues.

But that's what happened, according to a Broward Circuit lawsuit that accuses the parent company of Plantation-based private school American Heritage School of tortious interference.

It's an antitrust lawsuit that shows Florida has a problem with abusive noncompete agreements, according to plaintiffs attorney Jonathan Pollard of Pollard PLLC in Fort Lauderdale, who focuses on unfair competition disputes.

"Florida is ground zero for noncompete abuse," Pollard said. "The idea of a high school English teacher having a noncompete agreement is utterly absurd. But in Florida, that is business as usual."

The lawsuit claims unnecessary noncompete agreements have become so common in Florida over the past 30 years that companies regularly use them simply to stop employees from leaving.

"Florida has normalized rampant noncompete abuse as a standard business practice," Pollard said. "That is a massive problem. Companies in Florida are using noncompete agreements to eliminate ordinary competition, restrict employee mobility and suppress wages. That is point blank illegal and violates antitrust law."

The plaintiff taught high school English for 18 years before taking a job with American Heritage in May 2019, according to the complaint, which says James signed a noncompete agreement that should be deemed unenforceable.

James worked on a test prep curriculum for the defendant but quickly realized it wasn't for him, so when he was offered a position teaching ninth and 10th grade English at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, he quit.

The plaintiff alleges things went downhill from there, as American Heritage accused him of breach of contract and trust.

The complaint includes an excerpt from an email its attorney Jon Gumbel of Burr & Forman in Atlanta allegedly sent in May 2020, which said, "The confidential and trade secret information known by Mr. James is too important to AHS for the school to consider any waiver that would allow Mr. James to accept a teaching position or any other employment with Pine Crest."

But James claims American Heritage's real motive was to to avoid losing an employee to its main rival. The lawsuit alleges James never accessed any confidential information unique to American Heritage, and says, " 'To Kill a Mockingbird' and 'The Great Gatsby' are not trade secrets."

" If it requires two years of litigation and many thousands of dollars to establish that truth as a matter of law, then the justice system is utterly broken," the complaint said.

But counsel to defendant American Learning Systems Inc. Eric Schwartzreich of Schwartzreich & Associates in Fort Lauderdale, begs to differ, arguing it all comes down to the contract James signed.

"This was an employee that signed a valid, legitimate, lawful noncompete clause and violated those terms, and the school is simply seeking to have that enforced," Schwartzreich said.

Schwartzreich stressed that regular teachers at American Heritage don't sign noncompete agreements, but James did because the test prep materials he was dealing with constituted intellectual property. And even though the plaintiff wasn't leaving to work on test prep, Schwartzreich argues the situation was akin to a Coca-Cola employee leaving for Pepsi after accessing its trade secrets.

"He gained access to private, protected information," Schwartzreich said. "That was the purpose of the noncompete clause."

Pollard is handling the case with Christopher Prater. Broward Circuit Judge William W. Haury Jr. will preside over the litigation.

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