I’ve always believed that noncompetes and “independent contractor” status don’t mix. Now I have an appellate opinion to back me up.
In Reliant Services v. Brown, a construction-staffing company tried to enforce a noncompete against a punch-list worker it had consistently called an independent contractor. Reliant wanted to stop him from doing the exact same punch-list work directly for Ryan Homes — the same work he’d been doing for decades before ever meeting Reliant.
Here’s the problem: you can’t call someone “independent,” claim they run their own business, and then turn around and try to control where they work, who they can work for, and what they can do once they stop working for you. That’s the very definition of control. And control is the dividing line between an employee and an independent contractor.
The court saw it the same way.
Not only was the noncompete overly broad and geographically unlimited, but Reliant couldn’t show any legitimate business interest that justified restricting Brown’s right to make a living. He brought 25 years of experience to the table. He didn’t learn the trade from Reliant. There were no trade secrets. No confidential information. No customer relationships that existed before he showed up on the jobsite. And perhaps most telling — Reliant couldn’t show it lost a dime of business because Brown worked directly for Ryan Homes.
The lesson for employers is simple and worth repeating:
👉 If you need a noncompete to protect your business, you probably don’t have an independent contractor — you have an employee.
👉 If you want someone to be truly independent, you cannot control where they work, who they work for, or what they do when they finish your job.
Misclassification isn’t just a wage-and-hour problem. Sometimes, as here, it becomes a contract-enforceability problem too.
If you want enforceable protections, classify properly. If you want the flexibility of contractors, accept the lack of control that comes with it. You can’t have it both ways.
