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2 United States Court of Appeals 3 for the Second Circuit 4 5 August Term, 2021 6 7 (Argued: October 25, 2021 Decided: January 25, 2022) 8 9 Docket No. 21-870 10 _____________________________________ 11 12 JLM COUTURE, INC., 13 Plaintiff-Appellee, 14 15 v. 16 17 HAYLEY PAIGE GUTMAN, 18 Defendant-Appellant. * 19 _____________________________________ 20 Before: 21 22 NEWMAN, LYNCH, and PARK, Circuit Judges. 23 24 Hayley Paige Gutman, a bridal designer and social media influencer, 25 appeals from a preliminary injunction (“PI”) entered by the United States District 26 Court for the Southern District of New York (Swain, J.). The PI, based in part on a 27 2011 employment agreement between Gutman and bridal gown company JLM 28 Couture, Inc. (“JLM”), orders Gutman not to compete with JLM through the end 29 of her contractual term, enjoins her from using her name and its derivatives in 30 trade or commerce, and grants JLM exclusive control over three disputed social 31 media accounts for the duration of the litigation. We conclude that the district 32 court did not abuse its discretion in entering the noncompete and name-rights 33 prongs of the injunction, which properly flow from JLM’s likely meritorious claims

* The Clerk is respectfully directed to amend the caption accordingly. 1 against Gutman for breach of contract. Nor did the district court err in rejecting 2 Gutman’s contention that JLM breached the contract by refusing to pay her after 3 she stopped working. We agree with Gutman, however, that the district court 4 exceeded its discretion by transferring exclusive control over the disputed social 5 media accounts to JLM while explicitly declining to assess whether JLM would 6 likely succeed on its claim that it owned the accounts. We therefore AFFIRM the 7 order in part, VACATE in part, and REMAND the case for further proceedings 8 consistent with this opinion. 9 Judge NEWMAN concurs in part and dissents in part in a separate opinion. 10 Judge LYNCH concurs in part and dissents in part in a separate opinion. 11 12 RICHARD D. ROCHFORD, JR. (Joseph C. 13 Lawlor, on the brief), Haynes and Boone, 14 LLP, New York, NY, for Defendant-Appellant. 15 16 SARAH M. MATZ (Gary Adelman, on the 17 brief), Adelman Matz P.C., New York, NY, 18 for Plaintiff-Appellee. 19 20 PARK, Circuit Judge: 21 Hayley Paige Gutman is familiar to many brides as the namesake of the 22 “Hayley Paige” line of wedding dresses. She is also known to many social media 23 users as the “influencer” behind several “Miss Hayley Paige” accounts on 24 platforms like Instagram, Snapchat, TikTok, Spotify, and Pinterest. But after 25 Gutman announced her intent to resign from the wedding gown company JLM 26 Couture, Inc. (“JLM”), JLM claimed the rights to the “Hayley Paige” trade name 27 and ownership of three of the “Miss Hayley Paige” social media accounts. As their 28 differences escalated, Gutman advertised an independent appearance at a bridal

2 1 expo, used the “Hayley Paige” name to promote non-JLM brands, and locked JLM

2 employees out of the “@misshayleypaige” Instagram account. JLM ultimately

3 sued Gutman, claimi