“A U.S. District Court judge in New York ordered a newly hired Apple Inc. executive to stop work immediately because he might be violating an agreement with his former employer, IBM,” David Lawsky reports for Reuters.
“Federal District Judge Kenneth Karas in White Plains ordered that Mark Papermaster ‘immediately cease his employment with Apple Inc until further order of this court,'” Lawsky reports.
“Apple announced on Tuesday that Papermaster would lead the engineering teams making Apple’s highly successful iPods and iPhones and that he would report directly to Chief Executive Steve Jobs. On Friday it said he would cease work for now,” Lawsky reports.
“‘We will comply with the court’s order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles,’ a spokesman said,” Lawsky reports.
Full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Mark” for the heads up.]
I think afib and R2 are one and the same.
“I thought that indentured servitude was forbidden even if both parties agree to its terms”
True, and no court in the land will force you to work for a company for exactly the constitutional reason mentioned by another poster.
HOWEVER you can still be sued for breach of a contract and damages if you don’t keep your side of a bargain.
A good example would be a concert performer not appearing for a show. They can’t be forced to perform due to the involuntary servitude problems but they can be sued for the losses the promoter incurs by them not showing up and doing something they freely agreed to do.
But that’s not what this is about. This is about having left one company whether can he can work for another.
“Hmm, does this mean that certain persons are unemployable by default once they resign from their former employer?”
Not generally, no, while you generally can’t take proprietary information with you and use it, you are usually presumed to be able to reapply your skills for the benefit of a new employer. The reasoning is quite logical. People hire you for your skills and experience, Society is not benefited by forcing people to start a new career with every job change.
But if you contract with your former employer to not compete with them, then yes it can be binding. Such agreements must always meet a test as to whether the restraint of trade is reasonable.
California has very pro worker laws in this area to allow easy mobility among tech jobs. In many cases especially low level employees signing boilerplate agreements, California will just tear up the agreement. Most other states have stricter laws.
In any case you should always be careful agreeing to any such restraint that you can live with the terms of the agreement that you’re making.
“I think afib and R2 are one and the same.”
Then you think wrong, asshole.
I was born in White Plains Hospital, a long time ago LOL. It’s really becoming a nice town.
It’s all plain and simple really. Papermaster has a document that restricts his employment. Apple is going to have to fight to have IBM release him from those obligations. Chances are, Apple will have to pay some sort of damages or settlement to make this all go away.
Good, I’m glad. This shows Apple that they can’t do what they want all of the time. This is needed to show Apple that they can’t get what/who they want all the time.
@JAYGEE:
whatever
Keep reading the news, kids. Papermaster’s been misquoted and based on his comments, IBM has little to stand on.
Just like squeaky wheels get the oil, a lousy case gets squeaky when there’s not much else to do.
We will comply with the court’s order but are confident that Mark Papermaster will be able to ultimately join Apple when the dust settles
…. or when the terms of the agreement expire.
Obviously Papermaster has talent, to be chosen for such a position.
But is he THAT good, to be worth waging a costly and bruising legal war over?
If the terms are illegal and/or unenforceable, fine. Knock them down.
I’d just hate to see a battle where only the lawyers come out ahead.
But looking ahead, after the dust settles, wouldn’t it be weird if iPhones and iPods ended up having PPC chips in them…?!
The judge issued an order preventing Papermaster from working for Apple because if he starts working, and it turns out he is in violation of the non-compete agreement, even the judge can’t undo the work already done. The injunction shows that IBM has a legal argument, not that IBM is correct.
The judge will hear evidence and legal arguments from both sides, unless IBM and Apple reach a settlement. Then the judge will make his ruling. In any event, Papermaster only has a one-year non-compete agreement, so this time next year he’ll be working for Apple in the worst-case scenario.
Regarding the “at will” employment discussions: those only apply if you don’t have an employment contract. Once you sign an employment contract, your at will status goes out the window. The terms of the employment contract govern your rights at that point.
And people can stop whining about “if this was in California . . . “. It’s not. IBM chose New York as the jurisdiction and venue for a reason, probably most importantly that it’s NOT California. Get over it.
Paper-Master
not.
hehee
Moral of the story…work for IBM and you’ll never work for anyone else.
“Moral of the story…work for IBM and you’ll never work for anyone else.”
Moral of the story, don’t make legally binding agreements that you later want to ignore.
Papermaster freely admits he agreed not to work for IBM’s competitors for a year and everyone accepts that IBM offered him a year’s salary to stick to his word.
What he’s saying now is that IBM and Apple are not competitors.
Maybe not, but IBM disagrees. Since he’s a PPC expert and both Apple and IBM have PPC chip divisions now, and IBM also still markets PC to customers and IBM and Apple both sell Unix servers and IBM’s design and consulting services have designed MP3 players and IBM sells desktop word processors, databases and spreadsheets and mail software and Apple sells desktop word processors, databases, spreadsheets and mail software and IBM makes software development tools and Apple makes development tools and IBM does cellphone software and Apple does cellphone software, that claim seems a little ridiculous.