In Bankers Life & Cas. Co. v. Am. Senior Benefits LLC, 2017 IL App (1st) 160687-U, the Illinois Appellate Court recently held that a former employee’s actions in sending LinkedIn invitations to employees at his prior firm did not constitute solicitations in violation of his employment agreement.
 
The former employee, a sales manager, left Bankers Life to take a similar position with a direct competitor, American Senior Benefits. Bankers Life filed suit against the sales manager (and others) alleging that the sales manager recruited or attempted to recruit Bankers Life employees to American Senior Benefits and did so by sending LinkedIn requests to three separate Bankers Life employees. Once connected on LinkedIn, the three employees clicked on the former sales manager’s LinkedIn profile and saw that American Senior Benefits had open positions.
 
The sales manager moved for summary judgment claiming that simply inviting one to connect on LinkedIn did not constitute a solicitation, which was prohibited by the sales manager’s employment contract. The sales manager did not send any direct messages to the three Bankers Life employees, but simply sent a generic email requesting the three employees to form a professional connection with him through LinkedIn.
 
The Illinois Appellate Court upheld the grant of summary judgment in favor of the sales manager after analyzing similar cases from other jurisdictions. The Appellate Court found that the generic email messages did not contain a description of Bankers Life, did not mention American Senior Benefits, did not suggest that the recipient view a job description and did not contain a solicitation for the three employees to leave Bankers Life.
 
Although the Bankers Life decision is a Rule 23 opinion and not binding authority on other Illinois courts, its rationale will likely be used in future decisions.