Head Kandy vs. McNeill: Non-Compete, Judgment & Sale Terms

Head Kandy LLC v. McNeill ended in 2024 with a $627,845.25 judgment against Kayla Marie McNeill, the former owner and Creative Director of the beauty-tool company, plus a permanent injunction barring her from the hair-product industry worldwide for 36 months.¹ The case was filed in the Southern District of Florida and, despite often being described as a trademark fight, was decided on breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, fraud, and defamation.²

How a Seller Became a Defendant

Head Kandy LLC sells heated styling tools, including a tourmaline-infused ceramic round brush marketed as “The Perfectionist.” McNeill built the brand originally through her own company, Lashed Out, LLC, operating it as “Head Kandy.” In May 2018, Head Kandy LLC bought the assets of Lashed Out for $2,880,000, taking over the trade name, website, and social media pages.³ McNeill kept a 20% ownership share in the buyer entity and stayed on as Creative Director under an Executive Employment Agreement.²

That employment agreement is what the case turned on. It contained a worldwide 36-month non-compete covering the manufacture, sale, or distribution of hair-related products; a 36-month bar on soliciting Head Kandy’s customers, suppliers, and employees; a non-disparagement clause with no expiration; and, in Section 5(g), a fee-shifting clause requiring a breaching party to cover the other side’s enforcement costs.¹

What Head Kandy Said McNeill Did

The company’s allegations fell into two buckets. On the money side, Head Kandy claimed McNeill directed more than $100,000 in unauthorized payroll payments from the company’s Florida bank account to employees and contractors who were actually performing personal services for her and her family.² Head Kandy also alleged she charged personal expenses to a credit card — a $35,000 gastric bypass surgery, family travel, consumer merchandise, and years of restaurant meals — and then initiated bank transfers from company accounts to pay the bills.

On the competition side, Head Kandy alleged McNeill formed a rival entity, White Pineapple, LLC, while still employed and used her executive position to promote competing products. After she was terminated, she took to social media to advertise rival products and to accuse the company of stealing her business and running a “witch-hunt.” Head Kandy treated those posts as both defamation and violations of the non-disparagement clause.

Why This Wasn’t a Trademark Case

The setup looks like a trademark dispute: a former insider launches a lookalike competitor and trades on the brand she used to run. Head Kandy’s lawyers didn’t take that route. The amended complaint brought nine counts and none of them invoked the Lanham Act. The court dismissed the conversion and intentional interference counts early, leaving breach of contract, fraud, civil theft, unjust enrichment, breach of fiduciary duty, defamation, and declaratory relief in play.²

Two theories carried the case. The contract theory relied on McNeill’s own signed non-compete rather than on proving consumer confusion or trade dress. Head Kandy did not have to show anyone was misled about the source of a product; it only had to show McNeill competed at all, and her social media posts documented that plainly. The fiduciary duty theory focused on concrete dollars diverted from company accounts rather than the more speculative calculations trademark damages often involve.

Why the 36-Month Non-Compete Held Up

Non-compete enforceability in Florida runs through Florida Statute 542.335. The employer must show a legitimate business interest and that the restriction is reasonably necessary to protect it. Legitimate interests include trade secrets, confidential business information, substantial customer relationships, and goodwill tied to a trade name.⁴ Head Kandy had strong footing on each: McNeill had built the brand, knew every customer relationship, and had years of operational knowledge.

Duration mattered as much as scope. Florida’s statute sets rebuttable presumptions of reasonableness that depend on how the person became bound. For an ordinary former employee, anything beyond two years is presumed unreasonable. For someone who sold a business, a restriction of three years or less is presumed reasonable, and the presumption does not flip to unreasonable until the term exceeds seven years.⁴ McNeill was both a former employee and the seller of a $2.88 million business, and the 36-month restriction sat comfortably inside the seller window.

The Final Judgment

The court awarded Head Kandy $627,845.25 in total damages across two categories.¹

The first was $272,637.84 in attorney’s fees under Section 5(g) of the Executive Employment Agreement. The court reached that figure by taking $299,432.50 in total fees incurred and subtracting $26,794.66 previously awarded at an earlier stage.

The second was $355,207.41 for breach of fiduciary duty, split into three parts:

$8,874.61 for unauthorized compensation paid to employees or contractors performing personal services for McNeill
$256,732.80 for personal credit card charges paid with company funds
$89,600 for forklift, dumpster, and barn rentals that benefited McNeill personally

Head Kandy’s original complaint had alleged more than $1 million in credit card misuse alone, and the final figure on that claim shows the court required specific documentation before awarding anything. Breach of fiduciary duty claims live or die on the paper trail.

Alongside the money, the court issued a permanent injunction enforcing the restrictive covenants. For 36 months after entry of the order, McNeill is barred from:¹

Engaging in any business related to the manufacture, sale, or distribution of hair-related products
Providing management, marketing, sales, social media promotion, or similar services to anyone in the hair-product industry
Soliciting business from any current or former Head Kandy customer, supplier, or business partner
Encouraging any Head Kandy customer or supplier to reduce or end its relationship with the company
Recruiting or hiring any current or recently departed Head Kandy employee

The non-disparagement piece has no time limit. The court permanently enjoined McNeill from making defamatory, disparaging, or negative statements about Head Kandy, its affiliates, employees, officers, clients, suppliers, or investors, in any public forum. Running the 36-month clock from the date of the order rather than from her termination effectively pushed the competitive bar well past what McNeill likely expected when she signed the agreement.

What the Case Shows About Sale-Plus-Employment Deals

For buyers, the outcome shows how much of a $2.88 million acquisition can hinge on the restrictive covenants attached to it. Without the non-compete and the fee-shifting clause, Head Kandy would have faced a slower and more expensive path through trademark law to reach a similar result, and it would have had no clean way to recover its legal costs.

For sellers who stay on as executives, the case draws a hard line between planning a future venture and actively competing while still on payroll. Forming White Pineapple, using an executive platform to promote rival products, and moving company money to personal ends left little room for a defense on the merits. Florida’s employer-friendly framework then did the rest: a seller-of-business non-compete of three years or less starts with the presumption of reasonableness, and McNeill’s dual status as former employee and former owner locked her into the tougher end of the statute.⁴

1
Midpage. Head Kandy LLC v. McNeill Final Judgment
2
Justia. Head Kandy LLC v. McNeill – Order Granting in Part and Denying in Part Defendant’s Corrected Motion to Dismiss
3
govinfo.gov. Report and Recommendation – Head Kandy LLC v. Kayla Marie McNeill
4
Online Sunshine. Florida Statutes 542.335 – Valid Restraints of Trade or Commerce