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Community Hospital Group4/5/2005
yee which may fairly be characterized as 'undue' in that the employee has not, by his conduct, contributed to it." Ibid.
It is evident that Dr. More is a highly qualified neurosurgeon and his services are in demand. He received substantial offers from across the country. Although there may be some additional burden as a result of a longer commute, Dr. More need not uproot his family to practice outside the restricted area. Further, as Dr. More voluntarily resigned and brought any hardship upon himself, that hardship is not an impediment to enforcement of the restriction. We are convinced that JFK satisfied the second prong and demonstrated that enforcement of the restriction would not impose an undue hardship upon Dr. More.
C.
The final prong of the test is that enforcement of the restriction should not cause harm to the public. Karlin, supra, 77 N.J. at 424. The impact a covenant not to compete in the medical field may have on the public is of critical importance. In each case, the varying circumstances must be considered in the effort to evaluate that impact. Justice Clifford's guidance in Karlin bears repeating:
Significant here is the demand for the services rendered by the employee and the likelihood that those services could be provided by other physicians already practicing in the area. If enforcement of the covenant would result in a shortage of physicians within the area in question, then the court must determine whether this shortage would be alleviated by new physicians establishing practices in the area. It should examine also the degree to which enforcement of the covenant would foreclose resort to the services of the 'departing' physician by those of his patients who might otherwise desire to seek him out at his new location. If the geographical dimensions of the covenant make it impossible, as a practical matter, for existing patients to continue treatment, then the trial court should consider the advisability of restricting the covenant's geographical scope in light of the number of patients who would be so restricted.
[Id. at 424.]
As noted, the geographical restriction in this case is a thirty-mile radius of JFK or a sixty-mile distance from the farthest points on the radius. Dr. More and Somerset presented evidence to show that preventing Dr. More from practicing within the thirty-mile radius will be injurious to the public because there is a shortage of neurosurgeons in that area. Dr. Nossratollah Hooshangi, president of the Medical-Dental Staff, president of the Medical-Executive Committee, and Chief of the Division of Neurosurgery at JFK, stated in his certification that Middlesex and Union counties were suffering from a shortage of qualified neurosurgeons. Dr. Edward Von Der Schmidt, president of the New Jersey Neurosurgery Society, certified that there is a "significant shortage of neurosurgeons in the State of New Jersey, in general, and in the Middlesex Union/Somerset County areas." Dr. Hartmann, on behalf of Somerset, certified that Dr. More's services are badly needed at Somerset Medical Center, and that granting injunctive relief to JFK would pose serious harm to the public served by Somerset. Dr. Chimenti certified that because he and Dr. More were the only two neurosurgeons available to provide emergency coverage at Somerset, if Dr. More were prohibited from maintaining his present practice, neurosurgical treatment and evaluation in the emergency room at Somerset Medical Center would be dangerously compromised.
The Appellate Division nevertheless concluded that the covenant would not appear injurious to the public interest. The panel found that because six hospitals in the area, including JFK, hav
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