Johns Manville, a fiber glass production company, sent out an email on January 4th requesting that all employees not go to work for a competing fiberglass producer. Recently, several start-ups had begun to challenge Johns Manville’s dominance in the fiber glass industry.
However, after receiving a good job offer from a competing fiber glass producer, Glassfiber Inc., Bill decided to quit his job at Johns Manville to work for Glassfiber. Bill had read the email Johns Manville had sent on January 4th. Johns Manville sued Bill for having broken an implied contract. Johns Manville argued in court that once the email had been sent, Bill was under obligation to not go work for a competitor because he was being paid by Johns Manville at the time Bill read the email. The court ruled in favor of Bill, concluding that no contract had ever been created, and the email did not constitute an enforceable contract. But what if the facts of the case were different? Select each set of facts below that could change the case’s outcome.
A) Bill voluntarily signed a covenant not to compete when he was initially hired by Johns Manville.
B) Johns Manville amended the Employee Obligations Constitution that included a covenant not to compete. This occurred three years after Bill had been hired, and Johns Manville assumed that employees that remained working for Johns Manville after the amended constitution implicitly agreed to the stipulations therein.
C) Instead of an email, Johns Manville forced all employees, including Bill, to sign a covenant to not compete or otherwise receive a 50% cut in salary. Bill signed.
D) Johns Manville offered promotions, consisting of a bonus, higher salary, and 5 extra vacation days, in exchange for an employees’ signing a covenant not to compete. After signing and receiving these benefits, Bill changed his mind a year later, and went to work for the competing fiberglass firm, Glassfiber Inc.