97 N.J. Eq. 406 | N.J. Ct. of Ch. | 1925
The complainant's customers are trades people — jobbers or middlemen — in the cleaning and dyeing business. They gather the trade, the complainant does the work. Hockberg, defendant, worked for the complainant six years as solicitor, when he quit to engage in a like business for himself. He is now competing, and motion is made to enjoin him from soliciting complainant's customers who were on his list and route while in the complainant's employ. There is no restrictive covenant, no artifice or fraud has been resorted to, nor has there been any unfair dealings or advantage taken, unless soliciting the customers violates the law of trade secrets. The complainant's customers are all well known in the trade; they are classified and listed in the telephone and city directories, and while it may not be known, generally, who does their work, it is easily ascertainable. They are an *407
open market and fair field for all in the complainant's line who seek them. The defendant left his list behind when he quit. He has no need for it for he knows the customers by heart — any other solicitor would know them by the display signs of their business. The fact that he knows they deal with the complainant, while others know only that someone does their work, is not a trade secret, sacred to his former employer, not to be invaded now that he has launched in business for himself. If it were there would be fewer merchants. The open door to these customers, earned by his tact and contact with them, is the defendant's, not his employer's gain, of which he ought not to be deprived simply because he secured them as patrons of the complainant. There are cases where courts have interfered to protect against former employes pirating customers, as in Witkop Holmes Co. v.Boyce,
Motion denied.