Hall Render on the Latest Ruling Against the FTC in Challenge to Its Noncompete Rule

The good folks at Hall Render have posted an alert concerning last Thursday's injunction against enforcement of the FTC's final rule banning almost all noncompete clauses. The injunction came out of the Middle District of Florida and favors only the named plaintiff in the suit, not the entire country. Other district courts earlier disagreed over similar requests for injunctions:

• Ryan, LLC v. FTC (Northern District of Texas): injunction granted against FTC's enforcement of the final rule.
• ATS Tree Services, LLC v. FTC (Eastern District of Pennsylvania): injunction denied (plaintiff failed to show both irreparable harm and the likelihood of prevailing on the merits).

As for the long-running debate over whether the politics of the appointing president makes a difference to the outcomes in specific cases, Hall Render notes: "The presiding judge in the Ryan, LLC lawsuit in Texas was appointed by then-President Trump in 2019. The presiding judge in the ATS Tree Services, LLC lawsuit in Philadelphia was appointed by President Biden in 2022."

The most recent Hall Render post includes this reminder: "Limits on FTC Jurisdiction: Don’t lose sight that the FTC lacks jurisdiction over nonprofit entities." That means the FTC's final rule doesn't apply to the 49.2 percent "of the 4,644 Medicare-enrolled hospitals [that] are non-profit" (HHS Office of Health Policy, August 2023).