[IxDA Discuss] throwing out some knowledge to the group...

[Chauncey Wilson]

On 9/2/07, M S <mark_sloan at hotmail.com> wrote:
>
> I don't think anyone should be signing these kind of contracts, regardless
> of whether, like us, your state protects you. Everyone has the right to
> work
> and NO COMPANY should have legal means to prevent you from making a
> living,
> regardless of if it is a competitor or not. You have certain unalienable
> rights, and I think this should be considered one of them. It is
> ridiculous.
> Anyone have links to examples of this being upheld? The only time I have
> read about it is when trade secrets are involved.
>
> Thoughts?

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are a few links to cases involving non-competes including an
interesting cases where a person moved to LA to work with a competitor. Many
cases with senior people do go to court and some are overturned and some are
not. There are now clauses in some of the licenses for software products
that state that you won't hire people you know from the company.  I know if
one cases where a company wouldn't buy the software until that clause had
been purged.  There is a legal balance between the right to work for
PARTICULAR employers and the protection of the company's trade secrets and
investment in particular people.  Consider if you were a 5 person firm and
your chief software architect left to work for your most determined
competitor just as you were about to release the beta of your product.  Your
architect could in most cases work for thousands of other employers, but not
your direct competitor.  One solution (I think that Whitney may have
mentioned this earlier) is to ask an employer to provide a list of the
companies they feel are major competitors and have them include that in an
addendum to the employee agreement.  About 10 years ago, I did just that and
it turned out that there were only two companies on the non-compete.  If the
non-compete is too general, that could be harmful and you should negotiate
with your employer.

A few links dealing with non-competes (and challenges to them) are listed
below.  Frankly, employee agreements should be read carefully and if you see
anything odd should be reviewed by someone with contract or legal
experience.

Chauncey

http://www.memag.com/memag/article/articleDetail.jsp?id=257400

http://www.bizjournals.com/sanjose/stories/2002/12/30/story3.html
(interesting case about a non-California company enforcing a non-compete
with a person who wanted to work for an LA competitor).  It also notes that
CA makes most non-competes illegal in the high-tech area.

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=mn&vol=appunpub%5C0208%5C783&invol=1

http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/articlepdf/327.pdf?CFID=32759361&CFTOKEN=19733666&jsessionid=9a3083c134be6469382f

http://www.gdhm.com/the_firm/news/article/?ID=77

http://64.233.169.104/search?q=cache:B4mKs2ugu3sJ:www.armstrongteasdale.com/News-Publications/ClientAlerts/NewDevelopmentsInNon-CompeteLaw_April7-04.pdf+noncompete+court+cases&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=us&ie=UTF-8





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