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All The Lies That Are My Life, or, JohnT vs. his Parents.
Originally posted by Flubber
Hang in there Johnt . Its becoming obvious they are tring to shaft you. Your two chices are to take it or to fight back. I would fight.
I would also stop meeting with your Dad. He might even want to be reasonable on some level but then evil stepmom probably twists things, gets inside his head and convinces him you are the bad guy ( my perception is that she "runs" him. ) Any future meetings should be with the person in authority. I never negotiate with a person that does not have the authority to make a decision.
Oh and 185 an hour for the lawyer is peanuts if they can get it straightened out. EVERYBODY knows that lawyers are not paid enough LOL
Flubber LLB (member of the law society of Alberta)
The meetings with my father are past, an attempt to rectify the situation w/o having to resort to lawyers and lawsuits.
Your perception is spot-on. Regardless, the fact that she runs him does not obviate the fact that he, as an officer and agent of Acme inc, has the authority to enter into agreements (he obviously had the authority to sign the non-compete), nor does it obviate their responsibility to fulfill that agreement.
Given that the company made $900,000+ in pretax profit, and, in addition, their salaries were over $200k, there is no shortage of funds to make me whole again.
Imagine making $1.2 million pre-tax and then screwing your son out of $17,000 and your granddaughter out of her health care! (BTW, the $17k figure factors in the bennies that I was to receive, so it isn't $17k + benefits, it's $17k with benefits. The actual cash portion of the agreement came to just over $12k.)
Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Damn, John! I'm sorry, man. But, on the bright side, there is no way they are going to win jack in court.
Well, they can't squeeze blood from a turnip.
I can't see how they can win this either if it goes to court. I will allow that you all are only seeing my side to this, but for the life of me I cannot figure out what their side is other than pure cussedness.
Originally posted by MichaeltheGreat
Don't let the "family" crap get in the way.
It's emotional and psychological blackmail - your "antagonistic" tone, blah blah blah. You ingrate, all those times we bought you diapers and didn't charge you for it.
You have to treat this objectively as a business and financial issue, and let them treat it emotionally. When it's done with and disposed of, then you can deal with the emotional issues, etc.
Meanwhile, stick it to them, hard, every way you can.
(BTW, non-compete agreements are also generally argued against on violating Federal anti-trust laws. Been there, done that.)
Really? I've only explored their viability under Tennessee law. Can you explicate a little, please?
Originally posted by Japher
I think it really suks that your daughter has to suffer (or at least not be able to see her gps) because of their actions.
I am sure your laywer has looked for loop holes in the contracts... As, for the letter your lawyer wrote, I think they are stalling, just dickin' with you some more. I would begin the paper work to file suit now, and not waste any more time than is necessary.
Well, the fact is I don't want to sue. Far better to write off the $17k and the relationship than to get involved in a lawsuit that will cost me a minimum of $50,000, regardless of how much I may "win."
Having said that, the letter is necessary for laying the groundwork for a more-complete lawsuit in the future as it warns Acme "No more!"
From this day forward, any attempt by Acme Inc. or its agents to misrepresent or otherwise prevent my client from earning a living based upon this document may result in legal action, including the seeking of all potential lost wages or income that my client may have incurred.
Also, we respectfully submit that Acme Inc. purposefully defrauded my client by illegally denying him his lawfully-earned restitution in an agreement he made with the President of the Company.
I am aware that Acme Inc. takes the position that the President lacked authority to enter into the referenced compensation agreement. If that is true, please advise what authority the President has to enter into other contractual agreements. It appears that Acme is attempting to “have its cake and eat it too”.
1. Don't bring the non-compete up again to potential employers/clients.
2. To do so, you will be sued for all potential future wages that my client may lose. (This could be a freakin' huge sum, btw).
3. Oh, by the way, we're also notifying you that you defrauded our client.
4. For a really stupid reason, especially given that Mr. Doesn't-Have-the-Authority signed the non-compete as Acme's representative.
The letter is also an attempt to collect the money w/o going to court, as evidenced by the final paragraph:
Please advise when my client will be paid the monies owed to him by Acme Inc.
This request will likely be ignored (actually, the letter might be totally ignored.) Doesn't matter - they are warned that they are now playing by my rules, not theirs.
I think you got a case. Though you'd have to cut the 17,000 but would void that contract.
I would consider what time reference was given on the contract, compensation that was to be given for that contract, and the inability of you father to enter into a contract with employees. Though I am no law expert, or even close, the code that they stated at the beginning of the Tenn. portion of the paper (pp. 36) seems to say it all.
Really? I've only explored their viability under Tennessee law. Can you explicate a little, please?
First, you want to stick with the position that the non-compete is a forgery, not a valid agreement which you ever executed. (IIRC, that's the situation as you've described it?) There IS no non-compete.
Then as a fallback position, you argue it's not valid.
The general anti-trust argument is that any agreement in restraint of trade is contrary to public policy, and affects an interest in interstate commerce, thus making it a Federal law issue.
What you can and can't do, or more precisely, what a non-compete can and can't require of you, is very dependent on circumstances.
The company I consult for does them with other companies and some sales people, as a condition of receiving confidential data about a specific project, and only to the extent of their attempting to take that project with a competing offering. This is bundled into a confidentiality agreement, in which they admit they had no prior knowledge of the project or the client, and they had done no work on it. In other words, we're gonna give you access to something very specific and confidential, and you promise not to screw us on that, but otherwise, we may well be competing on other things. It's focused enough and limited enough that it doesn't really affect their ability to work.
Conflict-of-interest laws can make non-competes valid, but only if there's a real conflict of interest - i.e. if you're a contracting officer responsible for bid evaluations, you don't work for someone you just gave a fat contract too, for some limited time period.
Generally, to be enforceable in an anti-trust and restraint of trade context, these agreements have to be limited in scope, limited in time, and geared toward protecting some intellectual property or similar interest of the employer.
The more general the agreement, particularly if it prohibits you from working for any company in the industry, the more it becomes clearly a matter of restraint of trade.
Rather than litigate, you may have an advantage in going after injunctive relief to prevent them from trying to enforce the supposed non-compete, by first seeking declaratory relief that it's a forgery, and then enjoining any attempt to "enforce" it by claiming it's existence to companies you may work for or clients you may work with.
When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."
Listen to MtG, he sounds like he knows what he's talking about...
these agreements have to be limited in scope, limited in time, and geared toward protecting some intellectual property or similar interest of the employer.
not sure what is meant by "scope", but I would also add that the agreement has to be limited in geography, since most of the boring law crap I have read this afternoon also mention that.
Good advice, MtG!!! In regards to what you say here:
The more general the agreement, particularly if it prohibits you from working for any company in the industry, the more it becomes clearly a matter of restraint of trade.
How would you evaluate the following language?
4. The Employee hereby acknowledges and agrees that he/she will likely be exposed toa significant amount of confidential information concerning Acme's business methods, operations and customers while employed under this Agreement, that such information might be retained by the Employee in tangible form or simply retained in the Employees memory, and that the protection of Acme's exclusive rights to such confidential information and trade secrets can best be ensured by means of a restriction on the Employee's activities after termination of employment. Therefore, the Employee agrees that for a one-year period following employment termination (whether voluntary or involuntary and with or without cause), he/she will not, directly or indirectly, either for himself/herself, or through any kind of ownership or relationship as a director, agent, employee, or consutant, for any other person, firm, or corporation, act in any manner as such as to take away, or cause the loss of business of Acme.
I italicized the choice bits.
My lawyer laughed when he read this, btw, and then made the comment about making this a 13th amendment case. I really like the phrase "directly or indirectly."
"Not sure what is meant by "scope", but I would also add that the agreement has to be limited in geography, since most of the boring law crap I have read this afternoon also mention that."
No, as written it is supposedly in effect nationwide.
By scope, I mean the scope of prohibited / permissible actions.
Let's say for example you work for a pharmaceutical company in a late stage of development of a drug being submitted for FDA approval for some nasty condition, for which there is no currently approved treatment, and for which you have a competitor doing the same thing.
You can't require someone who is NOT working on that development they can't work for that competitor.
You can't issue a blanket prohibition that people working on that project can't work elsewhere in the pharmaceutical field.
You can, as a condition of having access to proprietary data, prohibit someone from working for that competitor on related developments for a limited period of time, say six months, or until you submit your FDA application, whichever comes first.
However, if your ex-employee wants to take a job with that competitor, and they've offered some different position in a different site (say an overseas subsidiary management job), then you have problems with enforcement.
The geographic limitations are two-fold - one is a matter of which law governs the agreement, and the other is whether the nature of the commerce interests and protectable interests of the employer have some geographic scope.
For example, if you run a statewide soft-drink distributorship, there may be an issue with you leaving for your main competitor in the same state, but there's clearly none with taking a job where you head up your competitors distribution in another state, or where you move up and manage an overall regional distribution that includes several other states besides the one you're in.
When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."
4. The Employee hereby acknowledges and agrees that he/she will likely be exposed toa significant amount of confidential information concerning Acme's business methods, operations and customers while employed under this Agreement, that such information might be retained by the Employee in tangible form or simply retained in the Employees memory, and that the protection of Acme's exclusive rights to such confidential information and trade secrets can best be ensured by means of a restriction on the Employee's activities after termination of employment. Therefore, the Employee agrees that for a one-year period following employment termination (whether voluntary or involuntary and with or without cause), he/she will not, directly or indirectly, either for himself/herself, or through any kind of ownership or relationship as a director, agent, employee, or consutant, for any other person, firm, or corporation, act in any manner as such as to take away, or cause the loss of business of Acme.
I italicized the choice bits.
My lawyer laughed when he read this, btw, and then made the comment about making this a 13th amendment case. I really like the phrase "directly or indirectly."
If they had a supposed lawyer write that ****, they should get their money back.
The "retained in memory" bit is laughable, but only because it's redundant and poor legal drafting. If you actually steal some protected rights or property, it doesn't matter how you got it or how you stole it.
The two big problems are the termination bit - employment is at will, so an agreement that prohibits you from seeking other employment even if you are terminated by the employer is really problematic. I don't recall off the top of my head if you told them to shove it and quit, or if they canned you, but if they were the acting party, even an otherwise enforceable agreement becomes extremely problematic.
The second problem is the complete vagueness of the last paragraph. Agreeing that you won't use confidential data and that you can be sued and enjoined for misuse of it is perfectly legal. Here, in theory, if you took a job as a delivery driver for FedEx, and you delivered a package to a supplier of a competitor, you could be claimed to be in violation of this "agreement."
That in itself is a fatal flaw, since there has to be enough specificity in an agreement for a reasonable party to know what his or her rights and obligations are under the agreement.
The appropriate remedy for the misuse of trade secrets, confidential data, etc., is injunction of the behavior going forward, and money damages for breaches that have already occured.
Have they spelled out any purported remedies if you "violate" this nonsense?
When all else fails, blame brown people. | Hire a teen, while they still know it all. | Trump-Palin 2016. "You're fired." "I quit."
"I don't recall off the top of my head if you told them to shove it and quit, or if they canned you, but if they were the acting party, even an otherwise enforceable agreement becomes extremely problematic."
The details of my leaving was in one of those long posts on the first page. I resigned. My father then made the agreement for me to stay an extra month to train my replacement, I agreed and worked that extra month in accordance with our agreement, which they then declared null on my last day of employment.
The non-compete spells out that injunctive relief is the remedy that will be applied by Acme if I act against the non-compete. Nothing more specified than that.
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