Malloy vetoes bills regulating medical spas, noncompete agreements

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy vetoed two bills Friday that would have limited the use of noncompete agreements by employers and imposed new standards on “medical spas” providing cosmetic medical procedures.

With the two vetoes, Malloy was negating bills passed with the support of trial lawyers and labor lawyers and associations representing dermatologists and plastic surgeons.

In his veto messages, the governor said both bills were deficient.

The medical spas bill would have required a physician to act as a spa’s medical director, perform every initial assessment and perform or supervise all cosmetic medical procedures.

“Protecting public health is an essential role of government, and I strongly support the objectives of this bill,” Malloy wrote. “Many of the procedures covered in this bill should only be performed by a licensed medical professional.”

But the governor said the bill may unnecessarily limit the scope of practice of advanced practice registered nurses and other medical professionals.

“Requiring physicians employed or on contract with a medical spa to perform all initial assessments may also unduly burden small businesses if such assessments could be done by another medical professional or an individual’s own physician,” he wrote.

On the bill involving noncompete agreements, Malloy conceded that some of the protections it offered may be warranted, especially a provision guaranteeing employees time to review noncompete agreements.

“Unfortunately, this bill leaves certain key terms undefined or unclear. As a result, this bill has the potential to produce legal uncertainty and ambiguity in the event of merger or acquisition,” he wrote.

The bill would have voided noncompete agreements after Oct. 1 unless the employee had at least seven days to review the agreement. The bill also would have applied to agreements in cases of mergers and acquisitions.

Common law and other statutes already impose restrictions on noncompete agreements, requiring that they be reasonable as to length of time and geographic area covered.

Malloy, who also signed 30 bills Friday, now has signed 327 bills and vetoed eight from the legislative session that ended at midnight June 5.