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Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

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Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#171

Post by sdenton4 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #169
sdenton4 wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are far more cities with Dem mayors than Republican mayors, so comparing raw counts is pretty meaningless. (Similar to counting comparing total homicide instead of per capita.) There are 10 Republican mayors amongst the 50 largest cities, and furthermore, these are heavily concentrated at the low end. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_mayors_of_the_50_lar... It turns out the relationship between crime and…

I did not compare raw counts, I compared per capita counts.

That's not what I said? Reread the comment, you might learn something.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#172

Post by willcipriano »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #150
willcipriano wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most non competes are signed on your first day of work after you quit your previous job (under duress) and provide no consideration. Basic contract law should have thrown these out long ago.

In my experience, "non competes" form part of an employment contract, as a clause of the employment contract, and are not an entirely separate contract. In contract law, the requirement for consideration applies to the contract as a whole, not to each individual clause. An employment contract, as a whole, definitionally provides consideration. Can you give some examples where "non competes" are signed independently o…

I've never had a real employment contract. Most Americans haven't. It's typically at will employment.

Every job I've had is as I've described. First day you go into HR to do your W2, set up insurance, 401K, etc and then you are also handed a surprise non complete. Don't want to sign it? No job.

If it was part of the employment contract you'd be aware of it during the negotiations. Since you haven't even seen the paperwork until this point, how could you have proper consideration for it rolled up in the employment agreement? Why is it even a separate document if that is the case?

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#173

Post by flanked-evergl »

sdenton4 wrote: post #171
flanked-evergl wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I did not compare raw counts, I compared per capita counts.

That's not what I said? Reread the comment, you might learn something.

I did re-read.

Quoting you: "There are far more cities with Dem mayors than Republican mayors, so comparing raw counts is pretty meaningless. (Similar to counting comparing total homicide instead of per capita.)"

Quoting me: "I did not compare raw counts, I compared per capita counts."

I did not learn anything I did not know before re-reading.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#174

Post by throwaway48476 »

ahiknsr wrote: post #128
throwaway48476 wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reflects the bias of your news reading. Federal courts mirror the politics of their location. Naturally this leads to circuit splits.

> Reflects the bias of your news reading. Right, it only reflects the bias of what news we read and has nothing to do with reality. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Albright > Alan D Albright[1][a] (born November 24, 1959)[2] is a United States district judge of the United States District Court for the Western District of Texas. He was formerly a United States magistrate judge of the same court. Albright oversees a…

Patent issues are a case of circuit shopping, not differences in plain text interpretation of sovereign power cases.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#175

Post by flanked-evergl »

willcipriano wrote: post #172
flanked-evergl wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience, "non competes" form part of an employment contract, as a clause of the employment contract, and are not an entirely separate contract. In contract law, the requirement for consideration applies to the contract as a whole, not to each individual clause. An employment contract, as a whole, definitionally provides consideration. Can you give some examples where "non competes" are signed independently o…

I've never had a real employment contract. Most Americans haven't. It's typically at will employment. Every job I've had is as I've described. First day you go into HR to do your W2, set up insurance, 401K, etc and then you are also handed a surprise non complete. Don't want to sign it? No job. If it was part of the employment contract you'd be aware of it during the negotiations. Since you haven't even seen the pape…

In this case, it sounds like the non-compete is a clause to an implied contract then.

And every single employment contract I have signed had a non-compete that was not mentioned during negotiation, and in every single case the non-competes could not be negotiated away either — that does not mean they have no consideration.

> Since you haven't even seen the paperwork until this point, how could you have proper consideration for it rolled up in the employment agreement?

You are using the word consideration in two different senses (i.e. equivocating in the technical sense) [1][2]. A contract must have consideration, but the consideration it requires is consideration in the sense of "A payment or other recompense for something done" not "The thought process of considering, of taking multiple or specified factors into account (with of being the main corresponding adposition)".

If you want consideration in the second sense here, just refuse to sign the clause until you have sufficiently considered it. But if you do sign it, it does not mean it's without consideration in the first sense here.

[1]: https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/consideration

[2]: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/consideration

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#176

Post by amalcon »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #168
amalcon wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're going to contend that solitary confinement is "denial of privileges" rather than a punishment designed to compel labor, then we just aren't going to agree and I don't see much point continuing. "Do this work, or I will take an action that is costly to me in order to worsen your life" is forced labor in any definition I can come up with. You are not required to work one, specific job that can be changed at a…

Solitary confinement is used in many other cases where people are not even convicted yet. If it was considered a right for the incarcerated to not be in solitary confinement, then it would be illegal to put someone in solitary confinement for refusing to work. I can't have any job I want either, nobody can. Criminals are not entitled to free room and board just because they have injured society. Criminals are not the…

If you're going to go to the "legal therefore moral" argument, you could've just started there. There are people who contend that the way some prisons are operated is actually illegal, but I haven't seen any of them here. This discussion is about whether requiring labor with threat of an explicit punishment -- not just "I will withhold something that is mine", but "I will go out of my way to make your life worse" -- is morally and practically comparable to (though clearly a lesser evil than) slavery. There are pretty good arguments that it is not (e.g. that chattel slavery would often extend to children of slaves, or include the right to capriciously murder the slave), but you haven't made them.

You can't have any job you want in the sense that you can't e.g. be President of the United States just because you want to. You likely (unless you happen to be in prison right now?) have a choice between at least two at any given time, though.

I suppose exactly zero of (to try to cover all political bases): Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, the various January 6 convicts, the various people jailed after the George Floyd riots, or even those convicted of things they literally did not do are victims then. There are, always have been, and always will be "convicted criminals" that definitely don't deserve their fate -- though, to be clear, I believe some (not all) of the ones I mentioned do (and you'd probably be wrong if you guessed which were which). They are in the minority, but I'm not willing to deliberately hurt that minority just to also hurt the majority who arguably deserve it.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#177

Post by willcipriano »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #175
willcipriano wrote: post #172

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've never had a real employment contract. Most Americans haven't. It's typically at will employment. Every job I've had is as I've described. First day you go into HR to do your W2, set up insurance, 401K, etc and then you are also handed a surprise non complete. Don't want to sign it? No job. If it was part of the employment contract you'd be aware of it during the negotiations. Since you haven't even seen the pape…

In this case, it sounds like the non-compete is a clause to an implied contract then. And every single employment contract I have signed had a non-compete that was not mentioned during negotiation, and in every single case the non-competes could not be negotiated away either — that does not mean they have no consideration. > Since you haven't even seen the paperwork until this point, how could you have proper conside…

Implied contracts aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. That won't hold up anywhere.

> refuse to sign the clause until you have sufficiently considered

Sure, but you just told me to quit my job and sent me an offer letter with your terms and "forgot" that not working for X years unpaid after I leave is one of them. In fact you probably did the opposite, you called it "at will" when it clearly isn't, for me at least.

Perhaps you don't sign and sue for promissory estoppel? Wouldn't it be simpler for employers to just define this sort of thing at the start instead of being sneaky about it?

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#178

Post by josefritzishere »

Non-competes are most often an abuse of power. There's no legal basis for their existence without due compensation. The FTC change made proper allowances for executives and IP. I think the Texas court ruling is deeply and perhaps criminally flawed.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#179

Post by wizzwizz4 »

flanked-evergl wrote: post #165
wizzwizz4 wrote: post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Official misconduct contributed to the false convictions of 54% of defendants who were later exonerated. In general, the rate of misconduct is higher in more severe crimes. > We tried to determine whether official misconduct that contributes to false convictions has become more or less frequent over the past 15 to 20 years. For most types of misconduct, we won’t know for years to come, but we already see strong evi…

Morality is not defined as things that come out of William Blackstone mouth.

That's true. (Commentaries on the Laws of England summarises a tradition older than the United States, but your point still holds.) Maybe falsely imprisoning innocents en-masse is okay, provided that (for example) the false imprisonment ratio is low enough and it could not easily be lowered further.

But it being okay isn't the same as it not happening. I'm not sure why you asserted that it doesn't happen, when it's a well-known problem. See, for example, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal (2003–2008), though it's rarely that blatant.

Re: Judge stops FTC from enforcing ban on non-compete agreements

#180

Post by flanked-evergl »

willcipriano wrote: post #177
flanked-evergl wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In this case, it sounds like the non-compete is a clause to an implied contract then. And every single employment contract I have signed had a non-compete that was not mentioned during negotiation, and in every single case the non-competes could not be negotiated away either — that does not mean they have no consideration. > Since you haven't even seen the paperwork until this point, how could you have proper conside…

Implied contracts aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. That won't hold up anywhere. > refuse to sign the clause until you have sufficiently considered Sure, but you just told me to quit my job and sent me an offer letter with your terms and "forgot" that not working for X years unpaid after I leave is one of them. In fact you probably did the opposite, you called it "at will" when it clearly isn't, for me a…

> Implied contracts aren't worth the paper they aren't written on. That won't hold up anywhere.

Okay, problem solved then. You don't have a non-compete clause because it won't hold up anywhere.

Still has no bearing whether your contract and its clauses have consideration.

> Perhaps you don't sign and sue for promissory estoppel?

Sure. Good luck.

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