🗞️ Game Store's Gag Clause on Pay Talk Ran Afoul of Federal Labor Law, Judge Rules
An NLRB judge found a South Carolina video game shop illegally fired a worker for discussing a manager's salary, ruling its nondisclosure agreement unlawfully restricted employees' right to discuss pay and working conditions.
A National Labor Relations Board administrative law judge has ruled that The Purple Eagle LLC, doing business as The Video Game Cavern in Taylors, South Carolina, violated federal labor law by maintaining an overly broad nondisclosure agreement and by firing an employee who ran afoul of it.
The case centered on Romulus Elijah Lofink, a sales associate who was let go in May 2024 after customers reported overhearing him discuss general manager Paul Case's salary and job performance. Store owner Robert Potts cited a confidentiality agreement, signed by all employees after Potts purchased the business, that barred workers from disclosing information about colleagues' "salaries, strengths, weaknesses, and skills."
Judge Jeffrey P. Gardner found the agreement presumptively unlawful under the Board's Stericycle standard, a framework the Board adopted in 2023 for evaluating whether workplace rules could reasonably be read by employees as discouraging legally protected activity. The judge determined that wage discussions among coworkers, a practice the National Labor Relations Act has long shielded as "concerted activity," could reasonably be seen as prohibited by the store's confidentiality language, and that the company failed to show a narrower rule could not have protected its business interests.
The judge further concluded that Lofink's discharge violated the law twice over: once because it enforced an unlawful rule, and again because the company's own stated reasons for the firing, discussing a colleague's pay and performance, amounted to protected activity under the Board's longstanding Wright Line causation test. The company's alternative argument, that Lofink had made false and disparaging statements about Case, was rejected for lack of evidence that any statement was knowingly false.
As a remedy, the judge ordered the company to rescind the nondisclosure agreement, reinstate Lofink, and make him financially whole, along with posting a notice informing employees of their rights.
Key Points
- Judge Jeffrey P. Gardner ruled the store's employee nondisclosure agreement was unlawfully overbroad because it could reasonably be read to bar workers from discussing wages and coworker performance, rights protected under Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act.
- Employee Romulus Lofink was fired in May 2024 after the owner learned he had discussed a manager's salary and job performance with customers and coworkers.
- The company argued the firing was justified because Lofink allegedly made false, disparaging statements, but the judge found no evidence the statements were knowingly false.
- The ruling relies on the NLRB's 2023 Stericycle standard, which shifts the burden to employers to prove workplace rules are narrowly tailored to a legitimate business interest.
- Remedies include rescinding the nondisclosure agreement, offering Lofink reinstatement, back pay with interest, and a workplace notice on employee rights.
- If neither party files exceptions, the ruling is automatically adopted by the full Board.
Primary Source Author: Jeffrey P. Gardner, Administrative Law Judge, National Labor Relations Board
Primary Source: The Purple Eagle LLC d/b/a The Video Game Cavern and Romulus Elijah Lofink, Case No. 10-CA-343133 (NLRB Div. of Judges, July 10, 2026)
Primary Source Link: https://www.nlrb.gov/case/10-CA-343133
