In 2001, Travis Mickle joined Lotus Biochemical as a senior research scientist. He signed an employment contract that contained a non-disclosure provision, which stated:
All Discoveries are the exclusive property of the Company, and Employee will promptly and fully disclose them to the Company. As used herein, the term “Discoveries” means all discoveries, inventions, improvements, processes, ideas and names in any . . .
Let’s say you just joined the company, find out it was not a good fit, and left within a matter of weeks or months.
A twist: you signed a non-compete that keeps you out of the industry for two years.
Can a company enforce the non-compete against you, even though you only worked for a few weeks? In other words, will a . . .
Under Virginia law, is a contract signed with a fictitious trade name legal, valid, and enforceable?
The answer is probably yes. A contract signed with a fictitious trade name is valid and not void, so long as the trade name has been properly registered with the state.
I. If the Trade Name is Registered, the Contract is Likely Valid
No Virginia court has directly addressed . . .
In Farm Veterinary Servs. v. Novak, 61 Va. Cir. 584 (2001), a group of veterinarians had a non-compete contract with their employer.
The veterinarians resigned and began competing with their former employer. The employer sued or breach of contract. This was not an issue where the employee had a counter-claim – such as for work injury, needing a workers compensation lawyer in Roanoke. Rather, . . .
Case: Wings, LLC v. Capitol Leather, LLC, Case No. CL-2014-9 (Fairfax March 6, 2014)
Wings, LLC, a company in Gainesville, Virginia, provides vinyl, fabric, and leather repair services. Most of their customers are auto dealerships and collision center who hire Wings to repair car interiors.
Wings employed technicians to service customers in defined geographic territories. Wings has customers in the metropolitan Washington, D.C., area, . . .
Case: Virginia Transformer Corp. v. Labh, et al., Case No. CL12-475 (Roanoke February 19, 2014)
Virginia Transformer, a manufacturer of transformers in Roanoke, Virginia, sued two former engineers in Roanoke City Circuit Court who left to join a Missouri competitor. The engineers had been hired in India and brought to the United States for training. (For more information on the visa process as . . .
Imagine working for a large, national company. You are based in Richmond. The company has offices in Chicago, Dallas, and Los Angeles. You resign to join a competitor in Orange County.
Not a problem, right? After all, you are moving nearly 2,000 miles away for your new job.
It might be a problem if, like many employees, your non-compete says, “Employee will not perform competitive services . . .
Many non-solicitation contracts will state, “Employee will not, directly or indirectly, solicit competitive services from the customers of Employer for a period of two (2) years.”
Read literally: the employee cannot solicit former clients anywhere throughout the world.
Is a worldwide ban on solicitation enforceable?
. . .
It is a common statement from employees with non-compete contracts: “There’s no way the judge is going to prevent me from working, no matter what this contract says. After all, Virginia is a right to work state!”
Wrong. Right to work has nothing to do with non-compete contracts.
The definition of “right to work” has no application whatsoever to non-compete, non-solicit, or “no . . .
In Parr v. Alderwoods Group, Inc., 268 Va. 461 (2004), a family sold its funeral home business to a holding company. The holding company signed a lease for the funeral home property; and, the family signed a non-compete that prohibited them from opening a competing funeral home after the sale of the business.
After the sale closed, the holding company began making regular lease payments. Several years into . . .