Most of my other mistakes were interesting. This one is Important, with a capital "I". It will be heard shortly in front of the SC Supreme Court, and at stake is whether big companies can use overbearing employment agreements to prevent innovation, suppress entrepreneurship, and hold their employees hostage.
My Employment
In 1995, my PhD was newly minted, and I really wanted to work in the research department of a big company on I-85 between Atlanta and Richmond. Milliken fit the mold, so I signed what was put in front of me on the day I started. Looked oppressive, but I had no choice. See this document.
Nine years later, they had gone from almost 30,000 employees to 14,000, and there was no sign of the trend abating (they are now maybe 6-7,000), so I made a huge leap of faith and jumped ship, mortgaging the house to start a new company, Innegrity.
I thought that since I was only using public information in my new company, and since I was not going to compete with Milliken, I would be clear. They took issue, and filed a law suit in 2005 which was taken to court in 2007. We either won or they dropped seven of nine counts, and the other two resulted in a $25,324 fine. Polled later, the jury said that I had not been fully dedicated to my job during my last few months at Milliken and so they had awarded back to Milliken a portion of my salary. I don't agree, but can see their logic.
The SC Court of Appeals upheld the verdict, and then it got interesting.
The Setup
In 2009, after the Appeals ruling, we were worried that the statute of limitations hadn't run out in Federal Court and so we would only agree not to petition the SC Supreme Court if Milliken would agree to a full release, which they would not. So we appealed, or rather, petitioned for a writ of certiorari, asking them to hear the case. Milliken did not appeal, so if allowed it would be one-sided.
Not until 2011, after I had been let go from Innegrity, did the SC Supreme Court allow the petition (agree to hear the case). I'm told they deny 95%, and if they agree to hear something it's because they see a strong argument to make a change. What kind of change is anybody's guess, and it could be either good or bad for the petitioner (me).
At this point, the choice to continue was mine and mine alone. My law firm, who was owed a lot of money by Innegrity, wanted to drop me and actually paid me a nice sum of money to allow them to work on unrelated issues for Milliken in the future. They recommended a new firm, who said it would cost $25,000 to try the case. The new lawyers immediately got a call from Milliken's attorneys asking if we were interested in dropping the case, and another $25,324 plus interest (my money that had been put in escrow) was offered up.
So I had the choice of accepting the money from the law firm (which I did), keeping my $25,000, getting another $25,324 and walking away from a complicated and longstanding conflict. Seems like a no-brainer, right? I believe, but have no proof, that it was carefully orchestrated.
I love finishing things. I get a real sense of satisfaction at the bottom of a box of Cheerios, or when a can of shaving cream runs out. This seems rediculous to write, but is true. I also am physically unable to walk away from a lawn that is half mowed, a room half vacuumed, or a load of laundry that is half folded. Forces of nature keep me there until the job is finished. Thank you, Dad.
So I told the lawyers to move forward, and the brief, response, and reply to response were all filed. This is not interesting reading, so open at your own risk.
The Issues
Milliken's employment agreement had two pieces that we took issue with. First, they define as confidential (and require me to hold confidential) any information related to their business that they hold confidential. Thus, information that is publicly available can be held confidential. Many of us have signed confidentiality agreements, and there are either four or five exceptions, including pubicly available information, information received from others, etc. This confidentiality clause has no exceptions.
Second, they claim ownership of all inventions that I come up with during my employment and up to one year after I leave the company. So all the work I did during my first year at Innegrity belongs to them, according to the agreement. The inventions do have to be related to "the business of Milliken," which they define to be all of chemicals and textiles. Pretty broad.
Our argument is that this violates longstanding law with regard to confidentiality agreements, and that they both act as an effective non-compete agreement, without the required restrictions in geography, etc. that are required with non-competes.
The Rest of the Story
Since the time when I decided to go forward with the petition to the SC Supreme Court, I have had my old company driven into bankruptcy, had three law suits filed against me and one suit filed against my new company. In each case my response is to shed light on the truth and expose things that others are hiding. I feel like I'm leading a group of spelunkers and am the only one with a map and a head lamp.
I'll never know whether all of this is carefully orchestrated by a behind-the-scenes puppet master, or whether it is the product of me being the "brawny one" among my father's three sons. Frankly, it doesn't matter as long as I can keep God's precepts--love your God, love your neighbor, judge as you wish to be judged--in front of me. He will provide, and I will grow from the experience. There are nights, though, when I would rather write a blog post than sleep.
There are two questions here: the first is, should I have signed such an oppressive employment agreement in the first place? Or maybe better, should I have gone to work for a company that would write one? Milliken, like New Jersey, is a great place to be from.
The second is, given the opportunity to walk away with a new car and a life with less conflict, should I have taken it? Yes, I'm giving the courts a chance to rewrite the law--but they'll do that anyway, won't they? It's subtle, and while I can explain and defend both decisions, I would call them both mistakes, and would certainly do things differently if I could do them over.
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