Reference no: EM131651462

Roy Robison is a barber who has worked at Blue’s Barber Shop, located in Big Rapids, Michigan, for the better part of fifteen years. Roy started with Blue’s shortly after leaving barber school and built up a client base that accounts for 45% of Blue’s business during his long and storied career. At the commencement of his employment with Blue’s, Roy signed a noncompetition agreement. Pursuant to the terms of the agreement, Roy agreed he would not provide any services associated with the role of barber, stylist, hairdresser or cosmetologist (including haircuts, trims, and shaves) for any other barber shop, hair salon, or other entity providing cosmetologist services located within the state of Michigan for a period of five years following the end of the relationship between he and Blue’s Barber Shop. While many of Roy’s clients began as clients of Blue’s Barber Shop, they became very loyal to Roy during the many years they patronized Blue’s Barber Shop. Roy was even invited to several of his client’s retirement parties, weddings and their grandchildrens’ baptisms. In his sixteenth year of employment with Blue’s, Roy became a grandfather and experienced the instinctual and irresistible urge to relocate to Dowagiac, Michigan, where his granddaughter lived. When he informed the owners of Blue’s Barber Shop, they initially congratulated him on grandparenthood but then reminded him of the existence of his noncompetition agreement and warned him against finding employment as a barber in the state of Michigan. Roy is in a pickle. He wants to move to Dowagiac, but must be able to maintain a source of income and really wants to keep being a barber. Knowing what you know about noncompetition agreements in Michigan, where do you think a Court will fall on the enforce ability of the three major categories?