Fifteenth Court of Appeals Decision – December 4, 2025
No. 15-25-00027 Nicholas Kreines, et al v. ES3 Minerals, LLC (On Appeal from the Business Court, Division 3B)
[Farris, Author, with Chief Justice Brister and Justice Field]
Injunctions/Bonds. Kreines and Ryan appealed a Business Court order modifying a temporary injunction that enjoined them from selling to certain mineral-rights buyers associated with ES3, their former employer. Affirmed in part, reversed and remanded in part.
Background: ES3 is a brokerage, buying and reselling mineral rights, and it takes substantial steps to protect the confidentiality of its information and transactions, siloing its research and information gathering from its purchasing activities and its recruitment of buyers and sales work; Kreines and Ryan are former employees; Ryan worked in purchasing rights from sellers, while Kreines worked on sales to new buyers; both men signed Confidentiality, Noncompetition and Non-Solicitation agreements, prohibiting them from using information gained during their employment and from competing against ES3 for 24 months. In August, 2023, the men left and formed Liberty Mineral Partners, competing with ES3 and selling to many of its customers. ES3 sued Kreines and Ryan for misappropriation of trade secrets, breach of contract, breach of fiduciary duty, and tortious interference with contract, and sought an injunction to prohibit the men from doing business with any buyers with whom they had worked while at ES3. The Travis County District Court granted a temporary injunction and required ES3 to post a bond. Plaintiffs removed the case to the Business Court and moved to have the injunction dissolved. The Business Court modified the temporary injunction, further clarifying the companies and buyers with whom plaintiffs could not do business. Kreines and Ryan then appealed the case to the Fifteenth Circuit.
HELD: (1) the temporary injunction order is not adequately specific as to what conduct is enjoined, thereby violating Texas Rule of Civil Procedure 683; the temporary injunction is flawed because it fails to specifically name those entities and individuals who are the subject of the prohibition, and the language prohibiting the men from dealing with any entities “known to be” subsidiaries of a group identified as ES3’s buyers is not sufficiently specific; this follows a line of cases invalidating injunctions that fail to specifically name off-limit contacts – see Computeck Computer & Office Supplies, Inc. v. Walton, 156 S.W.3ed 217 (Tex. App. – Dallas 2005);
(2) the injunction sufficiently explains the court’s reasons for granting relief and complies with Rule 683 in that it identifies the irreparable harm ES3 had suffered and would continue to suffer if relief were not granted; Rule 683 does not require an exhaustive exposition of the factual basis for irreparable harm;
(3) the $25,000 bond entered by the district court was an abuse of discretion as the record shows that potential value of contracts Kreines and Ryan could not pursue was in the millions of dollars; while the court does not hold that the bond must be set at the amount the men suggest, there is no evidence to show that a $25,000 bond is proportional to the harm they may sustain as a result of the temporary injunction; the trial court is not limited to the enjoined party’s estimate of lost profits in setting an adequate amount – it is one factor to be considered. The bond is inadequate.
(4) Kreines and Ryan’s final issue – whether the evidence supported a finding of a probable right to relief and imminent and irreparable harm – was not presented to the Business Court, and this Court will not consider the issue.
In sum: the portion of the temporary injunction setting a bond is reversed and remanded to the Business Court with directions to conduct an evidentiary hearing and set a proportionate bond prior to trial. That portion of the injunction pertaining to “known subsidiaries of [ES3’s] buyers” is reversed and remanded for further proceedings.