INTRODUCTION
«1 We consented to answer two questions that were certified to us by the United States District Court for the District of Utah. These questions are as follows:
1. Whether under Utah law a former employer is entitled to an award of lost profits damages, or instead an award of restitution or unjust enrichment damages, where a former employee has breached contractual non-competition, non-disclosure, and employеe non-solicitation provisions?
2, Whether Utah law recognizes an unjust enrichment measure of damages for tortious interference with a competitor's contractual and economic relations?
T2 We hold that lost profits is the correct measure of damages but that an analysis of a defendant's profits may be appropriate when damages are difficult to ascertain. We also hold, regarding thе second question, that lost profits is the measure of damages for pecuniary injuries due to tortious interference with a competitor's contractual and economic relations.
BACKGROUND
13 TruGreen and Mower Brothers are competing lawn care companies operating in Utah. The underlying litigation originated when one of the defendants, Ryan Mantz, resigned from TruGreen and within a few weeks began working for Mower Brothers. Other TruGreen employees followed Mr. Mantz.
T4 Several months later, TruGreen sent a letter to Mower Brothers, stating that the former TruGreen employees, who were employed by Mower Brothers, had signed non-compete agreements with TruGreen. Tru-Green alleged that following the departure of these employees, it "suffered ... a significant loss of critical management and sales *931 personnel, which has required the transfer of veteran sales representatives from [other branches] and the hiring and training of several new and inexperienced employees." In the meantime, Mower Brothers experienced impressive growth and revenue increases. TruGreen subsequently sued the former employees and Mower Brothers for breach of contract and tortious interference with prospective economic advantage.
T5 TruGreen sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to enjoin its former employees from working for Mower Brothers, but it was turned away by the court. The parties then filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The court granted summary judgment for the defendants on some of their claims and denied TruGreen's motion. As part of its decision on summary judgment, the court dismissed TruGreen's allegations against several of the fоrmer employees.
T6 At this point, only the following Tru-Green claims remain: (1) that some of Tru-Green's former employees breached three provisions of the TruGreen employment contract-a non-competition provision, a nondisclosure provision, and an employee non-solicitation provision; (2) that Mower Brothers, Jean Babilis and Kevin Bitton (Mower Brothers directors), and some of the Tru-Green former еmployees tortiously interfered with TruGreen's economic and contractual relationships; and (8) that Mower Brothers, Bitton, and Babilis violated Utah's Unfair Competition Act. Utah Code Ann. § 18-5a-103 (2005). The defendants denied all of the claims.
T7 Following the court's rulings on the summary judgment motions, a controversy arose among the parties about potential damages. TruGreen argues that an unjust enrichment or restitution measure of damagеs is appropriate for all of its claims. In essence, TruGreen contends that it is entitled to recover the economic benefit realized by Mower Brothers attributable to the breach of its employment contract. Mower Brothers counters that a plaintiff's lost profits, as sustained by TruGreen, is the appropriate measure of damages. The federal district court determined that there appears to be no controlling Utah law in either contract or tor-tious interference addressing the damages issue. The court therefore certified two questions to us in aid of obtaining guidance concerning the proper measure of damages. We have jurisdiction to answer these questions under the authority granted us in Utah Code section 78A-8-102(1) (Supp.2008).
STANDARD OF REVIEW
18 "When a federal court certifies questions of state law, we answer the lеgal questions presented without resolving the underlying dispute." Tabor v. Metal Ware Corp.,
ANALYSIS
I. LOST PROFITS IS THE APPROPRIATE MEASURE OF DAMAGES FOR BREACH OF CONTRACTUAL NON-COMPETE PROVISIONS
19 The first question we are asked to review is whether under Utah law a former employer is entitled to an award of lost profits damages, or instead an award of restitution or unjust enrichment damages, where a former employee has breached contractual non-competition, non-disclosure, and employee non-solicitation provisions. We hold that lost profits is the correct measure of damages for a breach of these types of contracts.
110 Under Utah law it is well established that
the injured party in a breach of contract action has a right to damages based upon his expectation interest as measured by "(a) the loss in the value to him of the other party's performance caused by its failure or deficiency, plus (b) any other loss, including incidеntal or consequential loss, caused by the breach, less (c) any cost or other loss that he has avoided by not having to perform."
Ford v. Am. Express Fin. Advisors, Inc.,
{11 In an employment context, it is not uncommon for an employer to require an employee to sign a contract stating that the employee will not compete with the employer, disclose private information, or solicit the employer's customers. We have held that such covenants are enforceable as long as they are supported by consideration, negotiated in good faith, necessary to protect a company's good will, and reasonably limited in time and geographic area. Allen v. Rose Park Pharmacy,
112 In addition to an injunction, emрloyers may also seek to recover actual damages. Because we have not had the occasion to rule on the measure of such damages, we look to our sister jurisdictions for guidance. In our survey of employment contract breach jurisprudence, we have found that the general rule for measuring damages is "the amount that the plaintiff lost by reason of the breach, not the amount of рrofits made by the defendant." - Trilogy Network Sys., Inc. v. Johnson,
{13 Our adoption of a lost profits standard, bowever, does not prevеnt a non-breaching party from examining a defendant's profits in an attempt to assess its own economic loss. We find persuasive the Idaho Supreme Court's analysis of the issue in Trilogy. There, the district court found that Johnson, a former employee of Trilogy, had breached a non-compete contract. In arguing its damages, Trilogy did not offer evidence of its own loss but instead relied solely upon Johnson's gains. The suprеme court found that Trilogy "failed to offer into evidence any proof of what its costs and profits would have been" and instead relied on "con-clusory statements that Johnson and Trilogy would have made similar profits." Trilogy, 172 P.8d at 1122. It then upheld the district court's decision not to award damages because Trilogy "failed to take the measure of its damages out of the realm of speculation." Id.
{14 The Idaho Supreme Court discussed the difficulties that can arise when attempting to approximate damages. It stated,
The measure of damages for loss of profits is rarely susceptible of accurate proof.... Therefore, the law does not require accurate proof with any degree of mathematical certainty.... Damages need be proved only with a reasonable certainty(,] and this means that [the] existenсe of damages must be taken out of the realm of speculation. The mere fact that it is difficult to arrive at [an] exact amount of damages, where it is shown that damages resulted, does not mean that damages may not be awarded; it is for the trier-of-fact to fix the amount.
Id. (alterations in original) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted).
15 We agree and find that our own contract jurisprudence supports this anаlysis. We have held that "Iwlhile the standard for determining the amount of damages is not so exacting as the standard for proving the fact of damages, there still must be evidence that rises above speculation and provides a reasonable, even though not necessarily precise,
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estimate of damages." Atkin Wright & Miles v. Mountain States Tel. & Tel. Co.,
116 The Trilogy court concluded that "(tlhe profits realized by the defendant may be considered by the trier-of-fact, if shown to correspond with the loss of the plaintiff."
{17 We find Idaho's reasoning persuasive and adopt it as our own. In doing so, we are in line with other states that recognize the difficulty of calculating damages in these situations and thus allow a plaintiff to use as evidence a defendant's gains. See K.W. Plastics v. U.S. Can Co.,
118 By holding that lost profits is the appropriate measure of damages in suits concerning breaches of covenants not to compete, disclose, or solicit, we are also holding that restitution or unjust enrichment is not an appropriate measurement in these actions. As we have stated previously, restitution and unjust enrichment are remedies found in quantum meruit. Emergency Physicians Integrated Care v. Salt Lake County,
1 19 Additionally, as a policy matter, we do not wish to adopt a remedy for breach of contract that punishes the breaching party. Rather, our focus is on placing "the non-breaching party in as good a position as if the contract had been performed." Amesthesiologists Assocs. v. St. Benedict's Hosp.,
*934 {20 In sum, our answer to the first question is that when a former employee breaches contractual non-competition, nondisclosure, and employee non-solicitation provisions, the appropriate mеasure of damages is the plaintiff's lost profits.
II LOST PROFITS IS THE APPROPRLIATE MEASURE OF DAMAGES FOR TORTIOUS INTERFERENCE WITH CONTRACTUAL AND ECONOMIC RELATIONS
T21 The second question the federal district court has asked us to address is whether Utah law recognizes an unjust enrichment measure of damages for tortious interference with a competitor's contractual and economic relations. In answering this question, we narrow our analysis to pecuniary losses and not injuries to reputation or mental anguish.
{22 We begin our analysis by rеcognizing that the Utah Court of Appeals adopted seetion 774A of the Restatement (Second) of Torts, which defines the measure of damages for tortious interference with a contract. See Sampson v. Richins, TTO P.2d 998, 1006-07 (Utah Ct.App.1989). Section 774A states,
(1) One who is liable to another for interference with a contract or prospective contractual relation is liable for damages for
(a) the pecuniary loss of the benefits of the contract or the prospective relation;
(b) consequential losses for which the interference is a legal cause; and
(c) emotional distress or actual harm to reputation, if they are reasonably to be expected to result from the interference.
Restatement (Second) of Torts § 774A (1979). We also recognize that many courts in other jurisdictions have adopted section 774A or similar rules. See Kforce, Inc. v. Surrex Solutions Corp.,
123 We find especially instructive the analysis in American Air Filter Co. v. MeNichol,
The basic failing of the plaintiff's theory is that the defendant's profits are not necessarily equivalent to the plaintiff's losses. The dеfendant's profit margin may be higher than plaintiff's for any number of reasons-e.g., product more efficiently made or distributed. To compel defendant to disgorge these profits could give plaintiff a windfall and penalize the defendant, neither of which serves the purpose of contract damages.
Id.
T 24 By holding that purely pecuniary losses from tortious interference are measured
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by the same standard as breaсh of contract, we need only look to the Trilogy standard that we adopted above for contract damages. The measure of damages, therefore, is the plaintiff's lost profits. Because proving lost profits can be difficult, there may be times, as we discussed above, when it is appropriate to look to the defendant's gains if such gains can be "shown to correspond with the loss of plaintiff" - Trilogy Network Sys., Inc. v. Johnson,
25 We therefore reject TruGreen's argument for unjust enrichment damages in tor-tious interference with contract cases. Thus, we also reject TruGreen's reliance on Notional Merchandising Corp. v. Leyden,
because an intending tortfeasor should not be prompted to speculate that his profits might exceed the injured party's losses, thus encouraging commission of the tort. Nor should such a defendant be heard to say that the unjust enrichment remedy is unfairly "punitive" because the plaintiff may recover more than his exact loss, when use of a tort measure might allow the defendant to retain some part of his ill gotten gains.
Id. at 776.
126 We are persuaded by the efficient breach arguments discussed above. When an efficient breach occurs, a breaching party may retain its profits in excess of a plaintiffs losses as long as the plaintiff is made whole. As was stated in Lake River Corp. v. Carborundum Co.,
127 In sum, we hold that the plaintiffs lost profits is the appropriate measure of damages for tortious interference with a competitor's contractuаl and economic relations. We recognize, however, that lost profits may be difficult to ascertain and therefore allow for the examination of a defendant's gains when there is a sufficient correspondence between them. We explicitly state, however, that we are ruling on pecuniary losses and not injury to reputation or mental suffering.
CONCLUSION
128 In response to the federal district court's certified questions, we first hold that when a former employee breaches contractual non-competition, non-disclosure, and employee non-solicitation provisions, the appropriate measure of damages is the plaintiffs lost profits. Second, we hold that the plaintiff's lost profits is also the appropriate measure of damages for pecuniary injuries from tortious interference with a competitor's contractual and economic relations.