What can I do if I signed an excessively restrictive contract? Situation I was offered a &quot;small work opportunity&quot; to provide consulting for a company operated by someone I met locally. They told me to sign some agreements, which I did. The problem is that the agreements seem to be very restrictive. The #1 problem I have is that I am extremely innovative and create a lot of companies, I don't want the contracts to possibly allow the theft of my intellectual property or put me at any risk for being sued. A few key notes regarding the situation I have not done any work for the company or invoiced them. The contract is invalid, for example in the contract you will see &quot;domain name auctioning business&quot; this is nothing like the work they have requested me to do. They have not disclosed any &quot;trade secrets&quot; or &quot;proprietary&quot; information to me as they said they would in the contract. Would this automatically void the contract? My Goal Essentially I want to be 100% sure that if I create a Facebook for example or some other great invention that these contracts won't be able to screw me over in some way or somehow take some credit for my inventions in any way. I don't mind continuing business with this person (if it is possible) although I need to approach the resolution of these contracts as soon as possible. How can I cancel these agreements as soon as possible (and if possible start to do business with this company under new or no terms)? It reads in there that I can voluntarily cancel the agreements, will this forever remove all terms in the agreement? Essentially I just to be absolutely sure that this company can not claim any part of my inventions. Would they even be able to claim any of my inventions that I make even while I am on the contract (since they have nothing to do with their company and I haven't even done any work for them). I have attached the contracts for you to review if you would like to see the exact citations. I have already contacted a lawyer and paid all the money I had and they didn't help me resolve anything, the guy just talked to me for a little bit. He essentially just took my $600 and no action was made. He said the best thing to do would be to wait it out because the contracts were never fulfilled by them and they can't claim my inventions etc if I am an independent contractor. To me it just sounded like a bunch of BS and not a real solution to this. I don't want to have any uncertainty regarding these documents. Here is my thoughts Hello Company, There has been a breach of contract on your end in regards to your obligations and description of the work which voids this contract. I voluntarily terminate these agreements as of today's date. As the agreements have been breached and do are too restrictive and affect the quality of my life. I don't mind starting business with you, but the current contracts must be voided and new terms must be set before this happens. Thank you, Me I realize I was foolish to sign some agreements without seeking legal review, and I will definitely never make the same mistake again.
I have already contacted a lawyer and paid all the money I had and they didn't help me resolve anything, the guy just talked to me for a little bit. He essentially just took my $600 and no action was made. He said the best thing to do would be to wait it out because the contracts were never fulfilled by them and they can't claim my inventions etc if I am an independent contractor. To me it just sounded like a bunch of BS and not a real solution to this. You paid $600 for expert advice which told you to do nothing. You think the advice is bullshit and intend to go full steam ahead against the advice given. I'd say it is very likely that the lawyer is a better expert than you, so you should follow his advice. You are in a hole, you were told to stop digging, and you intend to continue digging. Don't. There are times where doing nothing is the best advice. In this case, you intend to accuse someone of breach of contract. That has a good chance of landing you in court. A company cannot afford to ignore such a statement. You claim the contract is void and you want to cancel it - but you can't cancel a void contract. It's void. Listen to your lawyer.
I would recommend talking to an adult person in HR. I'm quite sure they will notice that what your manager wants to do is more than dodgy, and doing something dodgy may be in the interest of your manager, but not in the interest of the company. The best thing is to go to HR, acting as if a mistake has been made, and point out to them what your start date was, and that the new contract has the incorrect starting date, and they need to fix this mistake or you can't sign the contract. If they insist you sign it, then you DON'T sign it. If they say you will be fired if you don't sign it, then you tell them that in that case you would get legal advice. BTW. You definitely don't sign this as it is. PS. This answer was posted on workplace.stackexchange, not law.stackexchange, so please don't complain if there is no legal content.
An investor can require, as a condition of making an investment, that key management and creative employees of the company agree to a non-compete agreement. If such employes choose not to sign such an agreement, the investor will not invest. This is quite common. If Alice has signed such an agreement, she may not be able to start a new company with such new applications without permission from the existing company. She can surely write such applications for the existing company and get it to modify its business to use them. If Alice (still) owns a controlling share, she can simply order the company to modify or expand its business model. If she has sold enough of the company that she no longer controls it, she must persuade those who do control it to adopt her ideas. Any non-compete agreement must be limited, both in the range of activities it covers, and in the tiem for which it is valid. Some US states impose specific limit on these factors. An agreement tht exceeds such limits will not be enforceable. If Alice was employed by the company at the time she wrote any of these apps, the code may well be owned by the company, either under the work-made-for-hire copyright rule (see 17 USC 101) or under a specific contract of employment. Investors are likely to demand that such a contract be signed before they invest in a tech startup. Alice will also have a duty not to act contrary to the company's interests while employed by it. In the absence of non-compete agreements, Alice might not be prevented from founding or joining a competing company, but may not be able to use work done while employed by the first company for the benefit of a new one.
In the abstract, two businesses that cooperate in violating a third party's copyright could both face liability. Applying that information to the facts you gave would amount to legal counsel. If you don't want to tell the client 'no,' you should speak to a lawyer about your potential liability. Beyond the legalities, do you really want your portfolio to advertise that you design sites by ripping other sites off?
what would happen if you made the fine print of a legally binding contract too small to read? The contents of unreadable fine print would be unenforceable. That is because it does not meet the tenet that parties enter the terms knowingly. Even if the draftsman alleges the counterparty &quot;unreasonably&quot; declined to ask for legible print, the fact-finder be unable to ascertain the parties' legal position pursuant to unreadable print. The rest of the contract is binding and enforceable. Would the person who signed it be able to sue you? No. It would be pointless. The unreadable print is nothing but meaningless scratch/mark/sign that gives neither party a cause of action.
Since you are 17 years old, any contract that you sign is according to US law voidable by you or your guardian until some time after you are 18. So if he tries to sue you, you can just void the contract and he has no leg to stand on. The money he paid you is just bad luck for him. He won’t have any copyright or license to use your code in that case. BTW. You have a verbal contract which is quite valid. With no other evidence, any court would assume that the contract was that you delivered what you delivered, that he has a license to use the code, and he paid the money that he paid. If you void the contract, he has nothing.
In the real world, the contract could not be enforced, as being unconscionable. See Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Company, 350 F.2d 445. This, from the ruling, seems particularly applicable to TOS conditions: Did each party to the contract, considering his obvious education or lack of it, have a reasonable opportunity to understand the terms of the contract, or were the important terms hidden in a maze of fine print and minimized by deceptive sales practices
They can't simply keep the money; that's against the law. But in a situation like this, it's easy to get lost in the bureaucracy. The company may be in violation of different laws, re: For Your Information | United States Department of Labor, so you can try pointing this out in another email or letter. The threat of the Feds or other enforcement agency looking into the matter may make something happen. Or, try this: find the CEO (or a similarly high-ranked executive) on LinkedIn; many have open messaging in interest of good PR. Message/email them and carefully (and nicely) explain the situation. (A CEO will likely have an assistant monitoring their LinkedIn account. But, there are many stories of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos personally responding to emails.) Someone will make it happen and the employees who have not been helpful will be in hot water.