Kroeger v. Stop & Shop Companies, Inc.

For a decade the plaintiff, Robert H. Kroeger (Kroeger), scaled the corporate ladder at The Stop & Shop Companies, Inc. (Stop & Shop). His annual bonuses, added to his salary, were such as to stimulate Kroeger in 1961 to ask for a deferred compensation arrangement. In response Stop & Shop proffered a written agreement which, in the argot of the trade, applied “golden handcuffs.” That is, should Kroeger “so long as he lives,” go to work for a competing business east of the Mississippi, he would lose all.1 It *312is the reasonableness of the forfeiture provision that is the problem for decision.

In…