Travis K. Jang-Busby 

Travis K. Jang-Busby is a partner at Blank Rome LLP, where he practices labor and employment counseling and litigation for employers. His specialties include representative wage and hour cases under the Private Attorneys General Act, discrimination litigation, administrative investigations and preventative counseling.

He moved to Blank Rome in April 2023 after working at Procopio, Cory, Hargreaves & Savitch LLP and at Gordon Rees Scully Mansukhani LLP.

“Blank Rome is a great platform for working with my national clients,” he said, adding that he’d always wanted a challenging career. “I first went into teaching. I worked overseas in disadvantaged communities, and there I saw the impact that lawyers could have — that inspired me to go to law school.”

Jang-Busby and colleagues are currently litigating at the appellate level one of the hottest issues in employment law: the validity of noncompete agreements.

“I was hired to enforce such a contract,” he said, “and that’s always an uphill battle in California, which is adamantly against noncompetes.” Added to the challenge is the Federal Trade Commission’s proposal of a national ban on employers requiring workers to agree to such clauses in their employment contracts.

Even so, Jang-Busby succeeded in obtaining a noncompete injunction against a veterinarian who is a former employee of his client, a national chain of veterinary clinics, after she opened a competing veterinary hospital adjacent to his client’s facility in El Cajon. VCA Animal Hospitals, Inc. v. Dr. Nancy Hampel, 37-2022-00036623-CU-BC-CTL (S. Diego Co. Super. Ct., filed Sept. 13, 2022).

“She worked to establish her private veterinary practice for two decades, and then my client bought her practice for $5 million and continued to employ her. And then she bought the building next door and opened a competing hospital there,” Jang-Busby said.

The buyout came with a noncompetition agreement. When Hampel appealed the injunction, Jang-Busby retorted in court papers that the trial court had been right to enforce the agreement.

He wrote: “Respondent Court correctly ruled that the noncompetition agreement in question is enforceable under California Business and Professions Code Section 16601, one of the statutory exceptions to the general rule against noncompetition provisions, because it was executed in conjunction with the sale of Hampel’s veterinary practice, including the sale of goodwill, to VCA, in exchange for over $5 million.” Hampel v. VCA Animal Hospitals, Inc., D081424 (4th DCA, filed Jan. 9, 2023).

Jang-Busby added, “We litigated extensively, but they weren’t willing to resolve this. She’s now claiming that the goodwill that we purchased has expired, looking for a loophole in the law.”

The case is fully briefed and awaiting oral argument. Jang-Busby expects it to reach the state Supreme Court. “Whichever way the court rules, this one will get elevated.”

—John Roemer