See whenever I've seen a noncompete like that it's specifically said "within 5 miles of this location, up to 2 years, cannot contact any clients of this business"
I'm in a right to work state though and that means that noncompetes don't hold up at all unless they have a reasonable and non excessive scope. In a right to work state nobody can prevent you from earning a living so in order for a noncompete to hold it has to ensure that you have plenty of other options in your field in the area outside of the scope of that agreement.
I think we are talking about the same thing just using different terms.
> "within 5 miles of this location, up to 2 years, cannot contact any clients of this business"
What you just described is a textbook non-solicitation agreement.
A non-compete would read something like: "You covenant and agree that, during the term of your employment with the Company and for twelve (12) months after the termination thereof, regardless of the reason for the employment termination, you will not, directly or indirectly, anywhere in the Territory, on behalf of any Competitive Business perform the same or substantially the same Job Duties."
In a contract, terms like "Competitive Business", "Job Duties", "Territory", and "Company" would be previously defined. What this says in essence though is that for 1 year after your termination (either you quit or are let go) you cannot do the same job anywhere within the "Territory" which could be the city, state, country, region, or world-wide depending on how its defined in the contract.
So, let's say in your HVAC example. A non-compete says you cannot work in HVAC at all for the term. A non-solicitation, like you says prevents contacting clients of the "Company".
That's definitely where the disconnect is then. The non-compete you are describing would be totally illegal in a right to work state.
I'm 36 years old, have run a business and dealt with a lot of contracts like this for clients in the area and this is the first time I've ever heard of a specific "non-solicitation" agreement. My guess is that's because around this area it's what we understand a "non-compete" to be.
I can't imagine anyone would ever sign a document that said they couldn't work in their field at all because they worked for this company.
> I can't imagine anyone would ever sign a document that said they couldn't work in their field at all because they worked for this company.
Yep, but they do. Even Jimmy John's was making employees sign a non-compete saying they wouldn't work for any competing fast food delivery chains if they quit. E.g. if you drove for Jimmy John's you can't quit to drive for Domino's. http://fortune.com/2016/06/22/jimmy-johns-non-compete-agreem...
They got sued and lost, but thousands of employees signed them because their only alternative was to not have the job or possibly any job.
Non-competes are enforceable in all fifty states except California, Oklahoma and North Dakota [1].
"Right to work" means you have the right to work without being required to join a union, i.e. it bans union shops where one must pay union dues or lose their job [2]. It is a response by 26 states to federal collective-bargaining laws.
Interesting. I'd always heard it was due to right to work, but after researching it a little bit more it's just how non-competes are handled in my state (South Carolina).
> I'm in a right to work state though and that means that noncompetes don't hold up [...] In a right to work state nobody can prevent you from earning a living
Generally speaking, so-called right-to-work laws are about preventing an employer from requiring that all employees join a union. Maybe some of those laws are worded broadly enough to also cover non-compete contracts, but I've never seen any real indication of that being the case.
I'm in a right to work state though and that means that noncompetes don't hold up at all unless they have a reasonable and non excessive scope. In a right to work state nobody can prevent you from earning a living so in order for a noncompete to hold it has to ensure that you have plenty of other options in your field in the area outside of the scope of that agreement.
I think we are talking about the same thing just using different terms.