Consumer Law, Warranties is non compete enforceable in Washington?

[JoPa]

My jurisdiction is: Minnesota

I own a sales agency business in Minnesota, and would like to hire a sales representative to manage a northwestern U.S. territory. This prospective hire would be working in a similar industry, and would be selling some products that would compete with his current employer... some of the products would not be competitive in nature. The geographical boundaries of his activities would be much greater in my company than where he is employed today. Recently, his present employer has eliminated some elements of his previous compensation plan, including the granting of stock options, and a reduction in his commission structure as a means of reducing their costs. Additionally, the scope of his responsibilities has been reduced down to one industrial market segment instead of three, thereby decreasing the number of prospects and potential sales he has an opportunity to make. Given these facts, would he be able to join my company without fear of reprisal from his present employer? He would be calling on many of the same customers he has in the past, but would not be accessing information that is not public knowledge in terms of customer locations, business function, etc. Thanks in advance for any advice...

JoPa

 

[Michael Wechsler]

This question is impossible to answer here. The law wants to prevent people from being unable to be employed and non-compete agreements must be reasonable to be enforceable. To begin, we don't have the text of the employee's non-compete to determine whether it is reasonable (typically one year and limited geographic region is the maximum limit from my experience and some states like California have different laws.) Second, we don't know the actual level of access the employee has or has had with regard to the private information regarding the customers of his current employer. Third, we don't know the true scope of what the employee is doing and how it compares to you.

Let's assume everything is fine - this still doesn't prevent an employer from sending you a cease and desist letter after he finds out where his employee has gone. You need to see an attorney to answer your specific question as it is extremely fact based.