If you had April 23, 2024 as the biggest day in employment law of the year on your bingo card, congratulations. You won. Hands down.
Yesterday was such a blockbuster of a day, it’s hard to wrap your head around it. (My partner Sarah Westby and I have tried, and have summarized the results on
Sometimes it’s hard to appreciate how things have changed since the pandemic hit and the challenges we face going forward.
I was thinking about all those little things over the weekend when I put pocket change in my little “change jar” that I keep in my bedroom.
You see, prior to the pandemic, at the
It’s late March, which means that it’s too soon to predict which bills at the Connecticut General Assembly are going to have enough support for final passage, but not too soon to take a look at what is on the table.
By “on the table”, I mean bills that have been voted out of the
The busy season for the Connecticut General Assembly is continuing with the final push for bills now underway.
Another bill that has been sneaking below the radar is House Bill 6658. The bill, entitled “Employer Use of Noncompete Agreements”, has passed the Judiciary Committee, again without being referred to the Labor & Public Employee committee. It is now pending before the House.
The bill would apply to all employers in the state and, for the first time, attempt to regulate all restrictive covenants or non-compete agreements through a law. (Previously only broadcast employees and security guards were covered by such restrictions.) Only agreements created after October 1, 2013 would be covered. Currently, the rules regarding such agreements have been developed through caselaw.
The bill allows an employer to use such an agreement “if (1) the agreement or covenant is reasonable as to its duration, geographical area, and the type of employment or line of business, and (2) prior to entering into the agreement or covenant, the employer provides the employee a reasonable period of time, of not less than ten business days, to seek legal advice relating to the terms of the agreement or covenant.”
It’s the second part of the bill that should concern employers because it goes far beyond current caselaw. It would create a new cause of action (or way an employee can bring a lawsuit) for employers that violate the law and allow for the recovery of damages and attorneys fees.
Any person who is aggrieved by a violation of this section may bring a civil action in the Superior Court to recover damages, together with court costs and reasonable attorney’s fees. To the extent any such agreement or covenant is found to be unreasonable in any respect, a court may limit the agreement or covenant to render it reasonable in light of the circumstances in which it was entered into and specifically enforce the agreement or covenant as limited.
Continue Reading Bill Targets Non-Compete Agreements But Would Also Create New Cause of Action
With the blog approaching its fifth (!) anniversary later this year, I thought it was time to revisit some subjects that I covered in the blog’s infancy and update them.
One such story from way back on September 14, 2007, was a new law that prohibited non-compete agreements by security guards. Back then, I stated:
Suppose a former employee has breached your company’s covenant not to compete after she left employment. Are you, the employer, entitled to get the non-compete period extended as a remedy for the breach?
Great question. And one that differs depending on the state.
A federal court in Connecticut (Aladdin Capital Holdings, LLC v. Donoyan
Continuing our summer series on some of the basics of employment law, a question that sometimes arises by an employer is what options are available to an employer if an employee violates a non-compete agreement.
A non-compete agreement is typically one where an employee agrees not to work for a competing entity for a period
My colleague, Jonathan Orleans, chips in this week with a guest post on a recent Connecticut case about some of the restrictions that employers try to place on departing employees:
Post-employment covenants not to compete and not to solicit frequently include language that prohibits the former employee from “directly or indirectly” engaging in
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There were signs this morning that the economy is starting to pick up again. If that continues to happen, there is no doubt that we’ll start to see many more employees changing jobs to take advantage of new opportunities.
But as that happens, some of those employees’ employers will be left scratching their head
Over the weekend, I was asked: How do you keep coming up with ideas for the blog? My response was that I use Google Reader to flag stories that may be of interest.
Unfortunately, over the last few weeks, I’ve been flagging more sto
ries than I’ve had time to write about. So, now seems