Coleman v. Retina Consultants PC

Brendan Coleman appeals from an order from the Superior Court of Richmond County, which enforced a non-compete clause in an employment agreement that Coleman had entered into with Retina Consultants, P.C. d/b/a The Retina Eye Center “TREC”. The order enjoined Coleman from marketing certain software in competition with TREC and further ordered Coleman to pay certain money into the court registry. On appeal, Coleman contends that the trial court erred in upholding the non-compete clause because the clause was invalid, and further contends that the trial court was not authorized to force him to pay money into the court registry. For the reasons that follow, we affirm in part and reverse in part. The record reveals that TREC is a medical practice specializing in retina surgery. Coleman is a software engineer who was hired by TREC in 2000. Prior to his employment by TREC, Coleman wrote and marketed a medical billing program called Clinex. While employed by TREC, Coleman, with the assistance of the doctors who worked for TREC, modified the Clinex program to suit TREC’s specific business and developed an integrated retinal practice computer application called Clinex-RE. Clinex-RE is a software program that integrated electronic medical records and image storage with a billing software component. Clinex and Clinex-RE are different programs, and Clinex-RE only works in conjunction with Clinex. It is undisputed that Coleman incorporated into his Clinex program proprietary information and trade secrets of TREC in order to develop Clinex-RE.

In 2003, Coleman and TREC entered into a Software Agreement that allocated the rights to Clinex and Clinex-RE between TREC and Coleman. Although the Software Agreement states that Coleman owns Clinex and that TREC only has a non-exclusive license to use and sell Clinex, Paragraph 8 of the Agreement provides that, “Coleman will not distribute, vend or license to any ophthalmologist or optometrist the Clinex software or any computer application competitive with the Clinex-RE software without the written consent of TREC.”