What happens when a fired worker defies a court order — and his own signed agreement
A fired Sherwin-Williams employee who allegedly posted company secrets online lost his contempt fight in court, raising a serious red flag for HR teams.
In its decision on February 19, 2026, an Ohio appellate court upheld a contempt ruling against Brett Combs, a former Sherwin-Williams employee who refused to take down information his former employer alleged was confidential and proprietary, which he had posted on his personal website after losing his job. The decision is a timely reminder for HR teams of just how enforceable post-employment agreements can be — and what happens when a former employee decides to test that.
The trouble started when Combs, after his termination, signed an agreement with Sherwin-Williams in exchange for severance payments. Like many such agreements, it required him to protect the company's confidential information and trade secrets, acknowledge Sherwin-Williams' ownership of work product, and refrain from unauthorized disclosures. Straightforward enough.
Then Combs allegedly posted on his personal website what Sherwin-Williams considered proprietary business information — information the company said its competitors could use against it. Sherwin-Williams sent a letter demanding the content come down and warned Combs that his postings amounted to a breach of their agreement, which it said relieved the company of any obligation to continue paying his severance.
Combs refused. He then made things worse by adding more information to the site.
Sherwin-Williams went to court. The parties eventually reached an interim agreement that a judge formalized in a May 1, 2025 order: Combs would remove the information from his website while the two sides explored a settlement. It was a practical compromise — until Combs ignored it.
Five days after the order was entered, Sherwin-Williams was back in court, arguing Combs had not removed a thing. His own attorney later confirmed the website had only been intermittently password-protected, not taken down as required. Shortly after, that same attorney withdrew from the case, citing statements in his own filings that had turned out to be incorrect.
From there, Combs took matters into his own hands — literally. He began representing himself, filing a flurry of motions and notices challenging everything from the validity of the court order to its constitutionality. He argued the May 1 order wasn't a real judicial ruling, that he hadn't consented to it, and that enforcing it would violate his First Amendment rights. At the contempt hearing itself, when given the chance to respond to Sherwin-Williams' arguments, Combs said two words: "No response."
The trial court was not impressed. It found Combs in contempt and hit him with a $25-per-day penalty covering the period he was in violation. Combs appealed, raising four separate legal arguments. The appellate court rejected every one of them.
On the question of whether the May 1 order was valid, the court was clear: an order that both parties agreed to is binding, full stop. The fact that Combs later claimed he hadn't consented carried no weight without any evidence to back it up. On due process, the court noted that Combs had received notice of the contempt motion, had filed written responses, appeared at the hearing, and had every opportunity to defend himself — he simply chose not to. Representing yourself in court, the court reminded him, does not lower the bar.
For HR professionals, the case illustrates a few things worth keeping in mind. Severance agreements with confidentiality and trade secret provisions are not just formalities — courts will enforce them. Agreed orders, even those hammered out between attorneys at an in-person status conference, carry full legal force. And when a former employee decides to go rogue online, there are real tools available to employers who need to act fast.
The case also highlights a growing challenge that HR and legal teams are navigating with increasing frequency: what happens when departing employees take potentially sensitive company information to the internet. The core issue here was not the nature of the content itself, but the binding force of an agreement Combs had signed and a court order he had agreed to — and then ignored.
The path Combs took — ignoring a court order, walking out of a settlement conference, and ultimately offering no defense — made an already difficult situation considerably worse.
