Federal district court asked to reconsider TRO won by AssuredPartners

Defendants in poaching litigation filed by AssuredPartners of South Carolina LLC against Alliant Insurance Services and five former brokers are seeking to “modify or clarify” a temporary restraining order issued by a South Carolina federal district court last week, stating it is overly broad.

The U.S. District Court in Columbia issued the TRO last Wednesday in connection with a poaching lawsuit filed in September in reaction to Alliant hiring an agribusiness brokerage leader and four associates, according to court papers in AssuredPartners of South Carolina LLC and AssuredPartners Capital Inc. v. Alliant Insurance Services Inc., Richard H. Lonneman Jr., Meghan Schultz, Amanda Peterson, Melissa A. Bugeski and Laurence Rushe.

The motion filed with the court on Friday states that in addition to exceeding the relief requested by plaintiffs, it fails to identify the particular conduct proscribed, and proscribes “swaths of conduct by Alliant that is unmoored to any wrongful conduct.”

The filing said as it now stands, the TRO “appears to have world-wide anti-competitive implications between two major competitors in the insurance brokerage industry” and extends individual defendants’ restrictive covenant agreements as a whole, potentially prohibiting Alliant from hiring any of AssuredPartners’ 9,200 employees in 35 states.

It states that “while it is possible” that the TRO is limited to employees of AssuredPartners of South Carolina LLC and AssuredPartners Capital Inc., “Alliant doubts that even this was the Court’s intent, as Plaintiffs did not seek such sweeping relief in their motion.”

The motion says to the extent the court declines to modify the TRO, defendants request an expedited preliminary injunction hearing “at the nearest possible opportunity.”

AssuredPartners had no comment.