Can a non compete clause prevent clients from being serviced by an entire company? My wife works at a veterinary clinic (clinic A), recently they hired a new doctor who had a non compete clause in her previous contract (clinic B). A client came in who moved and was closer to clinic A, and after contacting her old vet, at clinic B, was told she could could not be a client at clinic A. My (admittedly limited) understanding of contract law leads me to believe that the new doctor would not be able to see, or profit, from the patient, but that clinic A doesn't have any legal ground to prevent another doctor at clinic B from seeing a patient. Is this just bluster, or does clinic A actually have to turn down any of clinic B's clients?
From the information given, Clinic A has not entered into any contract with Clinic B. Hence, Clinic B may have acted in bad faith when they told the client to shun A. This may be grounds for damages.
Your premise is a little off, which changes the question somewhat. The actual clause in the 2016 Junior Doctors contract Section 3 (52) states: Where a doctor intends to undertake hours of paid work as a locum, additional to the hours set out in the work schedule, the doctor must initially offer such additional hours of work to the service of the NHS via an NHS staff bank of their choosing. The requirement to offer such service is limited to work commensurate with the grade and competencies of the doctor rather than work at a lower grade than the doctor is currently employed to work at. Additional work, such as; event and expedition medicine, work for medical charities, non-profits, humanitarian and similar organisations, or sports and exercise medicine do not fall under the scope of additional work as a locum. (note that 'locum' has a standard definition of 'a person who stands in temporarily for someone else of the same profession, especially a cleric or doctor' but is not defined in the contract itself - its a well known term that does not require further definition, but it plays an important part in your question) So, a few things from that section: Where a doctor intends to undertake hours of paid work as a locum This immediately sets limits on what the clause means - the intention is to limit locum work, not general work. The requirement to offer such service is limited to work commensurate with the grade and competencies of the doctor rather than work at a lower grade than the doctor is currently employed to work at A FY2 or later junior doctor can go elsewhere to work as a house officer if they cannot find work as a senior house officer, again restricting the clause to similar working conditions and not general work. This is very very similar to any company putting a non-compete in their contract for, say, a software developer - you need the companies permission to go do contract work for another software company for example. To specifically talk to your point about being a gardener, this clause does not cover that because the employee is not acting as a locum in their professional capacity at that point. The intention of this clause is to fill the gaps in the NHS staffing plan caused by 11 years of mismanagement and underfunding - no longer can an in-contract doctor or nurse work their 38 hour rota and then go fill a lucrative shift with a private hospital, they must offer any hours under 48 to the NHS via the employee bank - this means the bank can pay minimal wages to cover shifts it had to pay locums a lot more to cover before 2016.
It is very unlikely that such a sentence (&quot;A 6 month non-compete/solicitation is required&quot;) is enforceable, because it is way too broad. The reasonable interpretation of the sentence is that the employer has thereby put the employee on notice that such an agreement will be required, and the actual terms of that agreement will be spelled out at that time, but that sentence does not constitute an &quot;agreement&quot;. Ad actual agreement has to be supported by consideration, and have a reasonable scope (including place and activities). Texas law disfavors restrictions on job-changing, so an agreement would have to go beyond just saying that &quot;a non-compete is required&quot;. Since the letter asserts that it is not a contract, there is no clear contractual obligation (they can fire you anytime they want, it seems).
Contracts are subordinate to the law Any clause in a contract that is unlawful is void. So, if the law compels you to disclose information then even if a contract prohibits it, disclosure is not a breach. However, in most circumstances, law enforcement officers have no power to compel disclosure - you have a right to remain silent. As such disclosure when it was requested but not required would be an actionable breach of contract. On the other hand, a judge can most certainly compel disclosure.
Yes, company A is liable for that; ignorance is not a defence. For this reason, a prudent company A would put an indemnification clause in their contract with company B so that if A is sues then company B pays. This is, of course, completely useless if company B is out of business at the time of the suit.
You cannot contract outside the law Any "contract" that purports to break the law isn't a contract - it's an unenforceable agreement. For example, across all jurisdictions, a contract that is unconscionable is void. So is a contract that requires one of the parties to break the law - a "contract" for murder for example. In addition, you cannot call an employment relationship a "business" relationship - if the relationship meets the requirements of an employer-employee relationship then that's what it is and woe betide you if you haven't complied with all relevant entitlement, tax, insurance and safety laws. In addition, all of the relationships you listed are contracts.
There is no such legal requirement coming from federal or NY state law. Doctors can refuse treatment when the patient is abusive or the matter is outside the scope of their practice, and that can include a test which requires skills, equipment or a contractual relationship that they don't have. Also if a procedure conflicts with their professional duties (that is a large loophole), they do not have to perform a requested service: an example is prescribing antibiotics for a viral infection. There is also a federal regulation known as the conscience rule which is conceivably applicable. If the test is medically unnecessary (e.g. a covid antibody test &quot;just for the heck of it&quot;) it would be illegal for the physician to perform the test and bill the insurance, though not illegal to do the test and have the patient pay, unless their agreement with the insurance company precludes any and all unnecessary treatments (regardless of whether the patient pays). That is, you cannot compel the doctor to breach his contract with the insurance company. If they do perform the test, then according to HIPAA, they have to tell you the results.
This law regulates employers, and New York City only has jurisdiction over employers in New York City, so this law would not protect residents of New York City seeking employment outside of New York City. Generally speaking, the law of a jurisdiction can only apply to someone who has "personally availed themselves" of the benefits of operating in that jurisdiction such that it is foreseeable that they would be subject to the laws of that jurisdiction. An employer not operating in New York City seeking employees at large wouldn't meet that requirement. While this concept is usually applied in the context of the personal jurisdiction of a court, it is also not irrelevant to choice of law questions. As with any law, there are edge cases that could be challenging in which the applicability of the law could be unclear. For example, it isn't clear whether this rule would or would not apply to an employer looking for an employee in its Chicago office (e.g. working for the Chicago Mercantile Exchange) that conducts interviews and makes hiring decisions for the job at a job fair intended for NYU Alumni that is conducted at its New York City campus, even though it doesn't have offices for the conduct of its primary business in New York City and the staff conducting the job fair are based in Chicago. It might. But, suppose that the law did apply to the conduct of the employer at the job fair. Would it also apply to a follow up interview in Chicago, or to employees interviewing for the same job at a similar job fair on the Stanford University campus? In these cases, probably not.