X-Message-Number: 19664 From: "davepizer" <> Subject: Reply to Alan Sinclair Date: Wed, 31 Jul 2002 10:36:53 -0500 This is a multi-part message in MIME format. ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C2387E.2FDAD320 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" In a recent post, Alan Sinclair expressed concern that Mike Darwin could not help out in a cryonics case for two years, due to a contract Mike had signed. Part of Alan's message: "He is prohibited from providing any service, or even advice, relating to cryonics, for the next two years, because he recently left his position at Suspended Animation Inc, and the CEO of this company, David Shumaker, has vowed to enforce a clause in Mike's contract forbidding him from doing anything in cryonics." Many years ago, I sold franchises and in them I had a agreement not to compete if the franchisee left our group. When this was tested in court I learned that the covenant not to compete cannot be universal. In other words you cannot keep a person from working everywhere on the planet. The agreement had to be restricted to a certain area where the company had an established presence. If this were true in Mike's case, then it might be the case that Mike could be prohibited from competing in Florida or only where ever Mr. Shumaker's company has an established presence. Another ruling from my trial was that the company seeking to prohibit the employee from competing cannot be so large as to have a monopoly in that area - if I would have had a monopoly, then I could not enforce any noncompetitive agreement in the area of the monopoly. The court, in my case, informed me that they have the power to declare the agreement void, OR to alter it. In my case they altered my agreement in a way that did not hurt me and I was able to enforce the noncompetitive agreement. The bad guys that had tried to violate my agreement were forced to move out of my area for a few years. But they were allowed to do business in areas where I did not have a presence. So in the end, they were allowed to do business far away and make a living, and I was protected from them in my area. We all came out ok. The above is a history that I experienced. It is not legal advice. I would suggest that Alan advance Mike some money to go see an attorney and get a legal opinion. David Pizer ------=_NextPart_000_0014_01C2387E.2FDAD320 Content-Type: text/html; [ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=19664