Injunctive Relief Against Former Employees Regarding Their New Business

In Preferred Meal Systems, Inc. v. Guse, 199 Ill. App. 3d 710, 722, 557 N.E.2d 506, 145 Ill. Dec. 736 (1990), the plaintiff appealed the trial court's denial of preliminary injunctive relief against three former employees--Guse, Singer, and Reynolds. The plaintiff alleged Guse breached his restrictive post-employment covenant when he formed a competing business with Singer and Reynolds, and that all three defendants breached their fiduciary duties to their former employer by hiring away its employees. Preferred Meal Systems, 199 Ill. App. 3d at 715. On appeal, this court said the company formed by the defendants should have been enjoined as "the instrumentality employed by all three individual defendants in implementing and perfecting the breach of their duty to the plaintiff." Preferred Meal Systems, 199 Ill. App. 3d at 726. The court ordered the trial court to grant injunctive relief against all three individual defendants and their new business, explaining, "injunctive relief against the defendants without restraining the creature spawned by their wrongs, would be completely without any force or effect." Preferred Meal Systems, 199 Ill. App. 3d at 727.