Eleventh Circuit Rules - No Judgement Stay for Jobot

This is a follow-up story in a series following the Hayes vs. Jobot saga, which you can read about here and here. To stay up on stories like this that you will find nowhere else, subscribe here.

The appellate court's denial leaves Jobot facing a $6 million judgment with nowhere left to run

The Eleventh Circuit didn't need much time or space to say no. In a terse order filed March 27, 2026, attached below, the court denied Jobot's emergency motion to stay execution of the $6,037,532 judgment entered in favor of Hayes Medical Staffing. For Jobot, the company that built its growth strategy around raiding the competition, the walls are closing in fast.

This is the third time Jobot has asked a court — any court — to save it from having to post the huge supersedeas bond required to halt collection of the judgment. The Magistrate Judge said no. The District Judge said no. Now, the Eleventh Circuit has said no.

How Hayes Won the Argument

Hayes' opposition brief, filed by Jackson Lewis attorneys Jennifer Schwartz and Dylan Carp, was a methodical dismantling of every argument Jobot put forward. Here's how they did it:

"We Can't Afford the Bond"—Rejected. Jobot claimed its financing agreement — signed after the bench trial concluded — prevented it from posting the bond without triggering a lender default. Both the Magistrate Judge and the District Judge called this a self-inflicted wound. Jobot knew a sizable judgment was coming when it executed that financing agreement in April 2025. Courts don't reward judgment debtors who engineer their own hardship.

"We'll Keep $7 Million in the Bank Instead"—Rejected. Jobot's proposed alternative security was a voluntary promise to maintain $7 million in its own bank account—an account it controls exclusively, with no oversight and no consequences if the balance drops. Hayes pointed out that Jobot was already contractually required to maintain $5 million under its financing agreement, so the "pledge" of $7 million offered Hayes almost nothing of value. A “pinky promise” isn't the equivalent of a supersedeas bond.

"We're Likely to Win on Appeal"—Rejected. Jobot argued that the district court's findings contained "fundamental legal errors." Hayes demolished that framing: every issue Jobot is appealing is a factual finding from a bench trial before a federal judge, reversible only for clear error. Two Jobot witnesses were found to have lied under oath. Factual findings based on credibility determinations get maximum deference on appeal.

"The Public Interest Supports a Stay"—Rejected. Hayes flipped this argument entirely. The public interest, Hayes argued, lies in the enforceability of lawfully entered judgments—not in allowing judgment debtors to frustrate collection by designing covenants that make compliance inconvenient. If the Eleventh Circuit had rewarded that tactic, it would have handed a blueprint to every losing defendant in a money judgment case.

Jobot's Raiding Strategy Backfires

It's worth stepping back to appreciate the full picture of what went wrong for Jobot.

The district court found that Jobot deliberately recruited Hayes' top locums recruiters—knowing full well they had signed non-compete, non-disclosure, and non-solicitation agreements. Jobot's locums division was new. It needed talent, clients, and physician relationships fast. It found a shortcut: hire the people who already had all three.

What followed was textbook trade secret misappropriation. One of the defendants blind-copied her personal Gmail on emails attaching spreadsheets with data on more than 11,000 cardiology providers—built up over ten years by Hayes recruiters—then purged the emails from her work account before resigning. Another emailed himself a urology master list containing contact information and placement preferences for nearly 12,000 physicians. Both then went to work at Jobot, where they were assigned to the locums team despite Jobot knowing about their covenants.

The Litigation Keeps Coming

Hayes isn't the only company suing Jobot over its growth tactics. Hayes' opposition brief disclosed that Jobot is currently a defendant in at least ten active lawsuits.

Remarkably, one of these is a suit filed by Allison Patierno herself—the Jobot executive who recruited Eichelberg and Simon and who was found liable for intentional interference—now suing Jobot for unpaid commissions!

Hayes used this litigation docket to devastating effect in opposing the stay. Any one of those cases, it argued, could produce a judgment that triggers Jobot's lender default and leaves Hayes with an uncollectable $6 million award. The more Jobot insisted on its financial weakness, the more it proved Hayes' point: this company cannot reliably satisfy a judgment 12 to 18 months from now.

What This Means

Jobot built its business around aggressive growth—volume hiring, technology-forward recruiting, and a reputation for going after talent from direct competitors. The Hayes litigation exposes the legal underside of that model when it crosses the line from competitive recruiting into coordinated theft of trade secrets and blatant noncompete violations.

For staffing firms watching this case, the enforceability of non-competes, non-solicitation agreements, and NDAs in the staffing space just got a very public stress test—and held. But as I have said before, these cases are highly fact-driven, and the facts here drove the result.

For Jobot, the road seems to have run out. Presumably, the company will seek bankruptcy court protection to at least buy some time to sort things out. That would hopefully include a plan to protect the livelihoods of hundreds of temporary workers on assignment. I wonder if anyone was thinking of them in all this.