As an employer, you may have established legally binding clauses in your employment contracts that prevent an employee from working in a specific area or area of activity for a certain period of time in a specific geographic area after the end of the employment relationship. While some states, such as California, have enacted a complete ban on non-compete obligations and made them unenforceable, many other states still legally enforce these contractual agreements between employers and employees. Start by explaining why you think the restriction should not apply. Explain why your new job doesn`t hurt their business. You may have misunderstood what your new job is or where you work. You submit your resignation. They thank the company for the opportunity to work there and wish them the best. So far so good. Then your boss comes in and says, “I`m sorry we`re losing you.
What are your plans? If you want to avoid a conversation about your non-compete obligation, answer, “Not sure yet. I will take some time before I decide. Maybe I work with my uncle in his construction company. If that`s true, so much the better. But if you signed a letter of offer with a competitor the week before and plan to start on Monday, that`s a problem. “Transparency” is a buzzword, and it applies in this situation. If there is a dispute over the enforceability of the non-compete obligation, it is best to know immediately. And I would much rather go to court and say, “My client didn`t see the new employer as a competitor and was open with her former employer about the direction she was going,” rather than having to defend lies or excuses. Well, if you`re lucky enough to be employed in California, the answer is NO, your current employer can`t stop you from working for a competitor. Under Section 16600 of the California Business and Professions Code, any “non-compete clause” that prohibits a fired or fired employee from working for a competitor or starting a competing business is illegal and unenforceable unless you were the owner of the business.
Unfortunately, if you work outside of California, the law can be very different, as many states allow an employer to enforce non-compete obligations, even for employees who don`t have special skills (like janitors and fast food workers). While non-compete obligations are not enforceable in California, confidentiality agreements are enforceable. This means that if you quit your job at Big Company A and work for a competitor, you won`t be able to take with you documents, technical information or specifications, plans or expertise. If you know how the “secret sauce” is made and you bring the recipe to a competitor – even if the recipe is just in your head and not on a piece of paper – Big Company A can sue you and your new employer and will likely win. I regularly advise managers on job changes. Too often, I receive a call after a lawsuit has been filed and an injunction has been issued to prohibit an employee from working; prevent them from attracting customers; and ask them to produce their USB sticks, laptops and mobile devices for forensic inspection. Over the years, I`ve grown this list: While many employees use breaks and lunch times to try to find a new job or conduct job interviews, using company email addresses, company funds, or company assets to find a new job can amount to a breach of contract and possibly theft. If an employee uses a company email address that proves detrimental to the company, or takes travel money from the company to attend a job interview, the employer will easily have a cause of action against the employee. I`ve lost track of how many times I`ve heard a client say, “I`m not worried about taking a job with a competitor. My [brother-in-law, cousin, hairdresser, bartender] told me that Texas is a `rule of law at work` and that non-competitions are not enforceable here. » LESSON LEARNED: If you want to hire someone, especially someone in sales or senior management, ask them if they have a non-compete or non-compete agreement with the company they are leaving. Then take the time to seek the advice of a trusted lawyer.
You`ll be glad you did. The slander is more than he said/she said conversations or frustrated conversations about a former employer. Defamation includes statements made by a former employee that he knew to be false and that somehow damaged the reputation and affairs of the employer. Defamation does not have to cause financial loss if it damages the reputation of the employer. If a former employee advertises fabricated information about a company on social media, or if an employee shares with a journalist they know are false statements about their former employer, the employer may have reason to sue. If a higher-level employee leaves a company without notice, they can leave the company in a devastating situation if they try to find a suitable replacement. Laws on the absence of adequate resignation vary considerably from state to state. Some states, such as California, do not require an employee to give reasonable notice. Other states allow an employer to sue an employee who left without proper notice, even if no income was lost. Court decisions land differently in each state, so it`s important to seek legal advice regarding an employer`s ability to sue an employee for failing to provide reasonable notice in your state.
Recently, Magic Leap, a company that wants to be a pioneer in the way people see AR computing, filed a lawsuit against rival Nreal and the company`s founder. The lawsuit alleges that a former employee stole Magic Leap`s revolutionary intellectual property to create a competing Chinese company that would use Magic Leap`s technology. This is the safest way to deal with a lawsuit from your former employer. I`ve had dozens of cases with a variant of this theme: upload files to a USB flash drive / transfer corporate documents to personal emails / upload documents to cloud storage. You have worked in a particular industry for years. You have gained a lot of experience in your field. You`ve been working for your current employer for a few years and decided it`s time to find a new job. (Maybe you want a new job because you don`t like your boss, or you think you can make more money at another company. The reason doesn`t matter.) But you seem to remember that when you started your work, you signed a kind of “non-compete agreement.” Is it enforceable? Can your current employer prevent you from working for a competitor? I understand – they hated working there, they let you pass for a promotion, and they underpaid you with commissions.
Take the main road and don`t burn your bridges. While it can be cathartic to eliminate dirty and lazy villains and brag about your plans to revive their region in the market, it`s not the best strategy to avoid litigation.
