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Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

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Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#201

Post by Bartweiss »

vinceguidry wrote: post #147
bluGill wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fortunately when that is your only offer and you don't have a job you can tell the court you signed that under duress. Which is to say courts will not look favorably on the whole thing. Courts tend look unfavorably on any agreement that doens't allow you to earn a living doing what you know how to do. As such non-competes as bad as they are are very hard to actually enforce in court. The threat of going to court thou…

The problem with noncompetes isn't that you'll get dragged into court over them, it's that old employer makes a call to new employer and you get shown the door. Now you have to sue somebody to get your rights upheld.

The upside is that in at least some cases, you can warn the new company and they'll agree to fight the thing - or even preemptively tell the previous company off.

Obviously that's mostly going to work for people with major leverage in the job market, but there have been some notable success stories lately of people not getting sacked.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#202

Post by checkyoursudo »

d0lph wrote: post #190
checkyoursudo wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IAAL) Just for clarity's sake: Some kinds of contracts definitely do require signatures to be executed and others don't. If it's important to you, then make sure you know which kind of execution yours requires. I have read cases where employment agreements are void for lack of signatures. But, I am not an employment lawyer, and every jurisdiction is potentially different.

Could you be more specific? I am curious. Did not realize contracts could be implicitly signed.

Implicitly signed? Like verbal assent? Yes, some kinds of contracts do only require verbal assent of the parties in order to be executed.

More specific about what? I can try.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#203

Post by chadash »

mbrundle wrote: post #189
chadash wrote: post #62

I see a lot of stories/comments about not signing non-compete agreements on HN, so I want to throw in my own 2 cents. Many times, companies have standard paperwork that they want you to sign and they don't want to deal with the hassle of hiring someone who won't sign the forms that their lawyers already drafted. Making modifications means that they have to call up their lawyer (who charges $300+/hour), have a convers…

I get this perspective in principle, but you have to be careful - I've seen cases where the wording of what construes a competing company / product / service in a non-compete is so broad that it could block me from doing any work in my profession at all. And I've also seen companies where contracts with questionable language were agreed and signed in good faith, but were later weaponised when things turned sour. Thes…

This perspective makes a lot of sense to me. My point is that some people are militantly against them and sometimes it's just not a big deal. A lot of companies have very narrow niches that you are unlikely to compete with anyway. If you work for a startup that makes AI powered baby monitors, it's unlikely that your non-compete is going to prevent you from working anywhere outside of the baby product industry (and you'll probably be fine in most areas within that overall industry as well).

Of course, there are people who are going to try to enforce crazy non-compete clauses. Many times, these clauses aren't enforceable if they are too broad. I'm not a lawyer, but when I spoke to one about this, he said that courts will generally not enforce non-competes unless it's pretty clear that the company you move to is an actual competitor (again, IANAL, so don't take this at face value). Still, it's a huge hassle and a big expense to hire a lawyer to defend you, even for a frivolous lawsuit. But this isn't only for non-competes. Companies can also sue for non-disclosure agreement breaches and the like which are nearly universal in employment contracts. Might be hard for them to win those lawsuits, but I'm sure it's a pain to fight them.

When I'm considering a new company, if I google them and see a history of litigation against past employees, I take that into strong consideration in my decision.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#204

Post by eloff »

joezydeco wrote: post #5

So recently I came across an Invention Disclosure agreement that a company wanted me to sign. The phrasing of this kind of threw me off: "I will promptly communicate to the Company each and every invention, discovery or item of intellectual property made or conceived by me, either as an individual or jointly with others, during my period of employment, and I agree that any such invention, discovery or item of intelle…

That's so broad and so ridiculous I'm sure it's unenforceable. They basically want to own every idea, every bit of copyrightable IP produced by you during employment but for a year afterwards too! What dirtbag company did this?

I once got the the offer stage with IBM, and they wanted me to assign all rights to any invention or IP produced by me during employment, including on my own time. It's quite common apparently. I have side-projects I work on, and I specifically asked for an exclusion for them. They refused, and I told them where to stick their contract - even although I was borrowing money to pay the rent at the time. But I like to tell this story about IBM to everyone who will listen so other engineers don't waste their time applying. I hope I've personally cost IBM more sharing this story than they cost me in wasted time.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#205

Post by fapjacks »

otterley wrote: post #56
Carioca wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've had an HR person tell me I needed to sign an NDA on the day I quit because it was missing (they forgot to hand me mine the day everyone got theirs). It included minimum damages of one year's salary for ANY breach. I had a lawyer friend write a much nicer and more reasonable version and told them that was the most I would sign. The only reason I even signed anything was to preserve the connections I had made ther…

It’s pretty typical to be asked to sign an NDA or other restrictive agreements at termination time if you’re getting a severance payment or other benefits that you wouldn’t otherwise get if you were voluntarily leaving the company. What were the circumstances in which they asked you to sign?

This happened to my dad. He was with a company for 25 years, since its founding. He knew everything there is to know about the particular product they made, not only from being there for so long, but from holding a variety of positions while there including fifteen years as operations manager. He never signed an NDA or noncompete or anything like that. The company was bought by an "investment group" which did it's typical cost-cutting stranglehold to cash in on the name before driving the company into the dirt. I tried to convince him he could start his own company, on his own terms, creating those products with the highest quality craftsmanship. He thought about it, but on his last day when the inevitable came, they coupled his severance pay to signing a shitload of these typically overbearing, draconian clauses.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#206

Post by CharlesMerriam2 »

I work in California, specifically in Silicon Valley.

What is the "Non-compete Clause" of which you speak? The only time I have heard of is a snippet of conversation that "Judges just laugh at them."

In practice, there a plethora of laws that provide legitimate protection to employers. Taking a copy of the software, copying the customer list, purloining the secret to creating nooks and crannies in muffins are all protected theft. You even have restrictions on your research if you are paid for research in one company and try to do the exact same thing for another company.

It works.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#207

Post by Bartweiss »

boomlinde wrote: post #167
lmkg wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(IANAL) Not signing the contract is one thing. Misrepresenting your position is something else. If you gave the impression that you agreed to the terms provided, then it's possible you could be held to those terms. A contract isn't defined by a signature. A contract is defined by a "meeting of the minds." The signature is commonly-accepted evidence that such a thing occurred, but it's not essential. By pocketing the…

If the employer wants the NDA to be part of the agreement, they should include it in the conditions of the employment contract. If they offer me a separate contract to sign for their non-disclosure terms and I agree neither verbally nor in ink, I think it's a stretch to call it a misrepresentation of my position. Given that this type of contract usually offers absolutely nothing in exchange, it would be more reasonab…

In every case I've heard of where someone was pressed for misrepresentation, it was for actively misleading the other party.

Verbally agreeing to the NDA then not signing might count. Signing a fake name would obviously count. Editing a digital contract before signing might count, and not highlighting the edits in a "track changes" negotiation would probably count. If you returned the papers and said "these are all set" or something, I guess you might be at risk.

But just... not signing a thing? If someone puts it in front of you without negotiating or asking for consent, then accepts it back unsigned? I've never heard of a lawsuit arguing anything even close to "I handed him a paper, so he should have spoken up to tell me he wasn't signing it", and I can't imagine it'd go anywhere.

(On which note, every NDA I've seen has been explicitly brought up to ensure that I was ok with it. But I guess that's not universal?)

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#208

Post by dahart »

There's a 3rd alternative. I recently signed a non-compete, but hired a lawyer to write an exception to the non-compete for my own nights & weekends startup. As part of that process, the company hiring me and asking for the non-compete agreement had to agree that my startup was not currently competing.

It was some of the best money I ever spent, and it allowed me peace of mind, and also allowed me to sign the company's contract, so there was some peace of mind for them as well. The language of my non-compete (and most non-competes I've seen) is so vague that just writing any kind of software for someone else could be seen to violate the agreement.

Re: Why I Don't Sign Non-Competes

#210

Post by Bartweiss »

ethbro wrote: post #71
chrisabrams wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In a similar light, there are many places that ask you fill out your social security number among other items on paperwork. 9/10 times they will never ask you to fill in the blanks you left out...

If you leave off your social security number, your employer is presumably going to have difficulty paying taxes / social security / etc to you. Depending on work relationship (e.g. contract), they may not be doing this anyway. But there are some things they need it for.

With all the stupid and unjustified uses of SSN, it's sort of funny to see this as the one people are objecting to. Working out Social Security contributions for your paycheck is pretty much the most reasonable use for that number I can think of.
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