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Employment Law - Restrictive covenant - Remedies - Principles governing restrictive covenants in employment agreements - Doctrine of notional severance as a remedy for illegality in restrictive covenants in employment agreements - Whether Court of Appeal erred by applying principles applicable to restrictive covenants in commercial contracts to a restrictive covenant in an employment agreement - Whether Court of Appeal improperly applied doctrine of notional severance to interpret a restrictive covenant - Whether Court of Appeal erred by applying its own view of the reasonable geographic scope of a restrictive covenant - Whether Court of Appeal erred with respect to geographical reach and temporal scope of a restrictive covenant in assessing its reasonableness - Whether the Court of Appeal's judgment raises a conflict in case law.

The applicant agreed to a restrictive covenant when he sold his insurance agency and began a three year employment contract with the buyer. The buyer changed the name of the agency to the respondent's name. Three years later, the buyer renewed the applicant's employment in a new employment contract that included the respondent as a party. The contract contained a restrictive covenant. The buyer sold the agency to another buyer who also renewed the applicant's employment. The employment contract with the second buyer also contains a restrictive covenant. The applicant worked for the second buyer for a number of years and then went to work for a competitor after the contract with the second buyer ended. The respondent sought to prevent the applicant from working for the competitor.