That's time consuming and expensive. If you found yourself in a situation where you're signing a non-compete out of desperation, you're lacking in both time and resources.

Isn't this the problem, why should it be down to you to challenge. If it's illegal why doesn't the government investigate and take the company to court?

If you get stabbed don't the police arrest the person and, the state try and convict them? They don't leave it to the victim to mount a case, surely?

A proper legal system would provide sufficient reward to make it always worthwhile to challenge companies _clearly_ abusing their power in that way.

In some cases of injury, especially involving corporations, the criminal justice system does let civil court system take the lead with wrongful death lawsuits and the like.

And even criminal trials end up in plea bargain settlements. The trial and deliberation isn't necessarily expected.

I was desperate for work and signed a non-compete for a security guard job, one of the easiest jobs to get. If I got a job at a competitor within N miles I would have had to pay $Xtimes1000 to my current employer.

Sheesh.

Presumably you'd just not pay, and the non-compete, being illegal, would never make it to court?

No way it makes it to court. Not to mention, what damages would they claim? Punitive damages for an employee leaving aren't a thing.

Doesn't have to make it to court for them to strongarm you into a settlement. The threat of a lawsuit is enough for many to agree on a settlement just so it doesn't go to court, even if you'd likely win as a defendant. Lawyers are expensive and so is the appeals process.

Exactly. As the cops say, you may beat the rap, but you can't beat the ride. In a court it costs money to win or to lose. If you fight, they can afford to fight more than you can.

> Doesn't have to make it to court for them to strongarm you into a settlement.

And what would they threaten you with? Bring that lawsuit before a judge and they'd laugh you out of the building.

They'd probably have their corporate lawyer write a mean sounding letter, you'd ignore, no way anything happens beyond that.

The nasty letter and threat of a lawsuit are the threats. You have to remember that for many Americans, a lawsuit means bankruptcy and that in most states non-compete agreements are lawful.

The issue could be that the potential employer is not willing to hire someone under a non-compete even if the person under the non-compete is willing to challenge it.

That's another case where a union is very useful.

For the individual, challenging a non-compete agreement is probably not worth it. But amortising the cost over everyone who benefits it becomes a very reasonable thing to do.

Just tack on a mandatory individual arbitration agreement and this option is gone, too.

No, a majority of the time, they are not illegal outside of California.

State legislatures have been doing a great job in preventing non-competes from being banned, because they aren't scared of organized political action by labour.

It is also interesting game-theory wise that we see countless towns and states trying to be 'the next Silicon Valley' but that is one thing that they never do that could put them in some degree of competition. Especially places with other assets such as having many prominent universities.

Businesses so successful that they have no need to do anything weird to their employees are super rare. And non-competes are one of those things that very weakly impact a bottom line. So some Darwinian process with cities and companies or whatever is never going to select for, "No noncompetes."

The bigger question is if you really believe that the "laboratories" / Darwinian process of cities and regulations and states and whatever idea in the first place. It's a conjecture by some credible, mainstream public intellectuals. The biggest evidence for it is cities/states accommodating tax avoidance, which so directly affects the bottom line that it's basically an apples-to-oranges comparison with anything less concrete like non-competes.

Why would it select for no non-competes when people are willing to sign them and a culture of legal "take anything you can get"-ism among employers pays off in other areas?

I said in a majority of cases. The legality doesn't have to do with whether or not they're allowed by the state (they're allowed everywhere, even in California), but whether or not they can apply to the person signing the agreement. Courts uphold non-competes against managers moving to a competitor, workers taking client lists, former equity stakeholders, etc..., but almost never against low-level employees.