Doreen Koban to Bermuda's Court of Appeals.

Mrs. Reiter lost her suit against the two hairdressers after she tried to get the Supreme Court to uphold contracts restricting them from working for one year after quitting her employ.

In a precedent-setting judgment in July, Puisne Judge Vincent Meerabux ruled such contracts were an unreasonable restraint of trade because of Bermuda's small size.

Clauses restricting employees from competing or soliciting clients after they leave a business usually crop up in contracts made in the hairdressing, legal, and accounting professions.

Some executives and doctors may also have agreed to such clauses in contracts they signed.

Restraint of trade clauses have been upheld in the British courts only where they have been deemed not to have restricted someone from working outside of a limited geographical area, say ten miles from a former employer.

Mr. Justice Meerabux decided that the clauses in contracts Mrs. Reiter had made Ms Ness and Ms Koban sign were too restrictive in making them agree not to work as hairdressers "at any place in the Islands of Bermuda'' for one year after they left Mayfair Beauty Salon. Mrs. Reiter closed down Mayfair soon after the two hairdressers left to run their own operation, Images on Pitts Bay Road.

Lawyer Richard Hector, who represented the two hairdressers, said at the time restraint of trade clauses were commonly used in Bermuda as a means of keeping employees from leaving a business.

Mrs. Reiter's appeal will be heard March 13.

COURT OF APPEAL COA