Originally Posted by
FlashBazbo
Shouldn't have any impact. Every designer and engineer who has worked for a competent company has had to sign an employment agreement assigning their stuff (even off the clock) to their employer. Employers don't like funding and educating their employees only to have it used against them.
And that kind of wording is unenforceable in most jurisdictions. A company can't own an idea or project of an employee if it's not developed on company time or using company resources. It can't own an employee's personal toolkit or the expertise developed while it employs him or her. It can't own an employee's daydreams or pipe dreams. And even if it trains an employee, it can't prevent him or her from applying that training somewhere else (but it might be able to claim for reimbursement).
Here are the intangibles a company can own--customer lists and other documentation or code it generates, trade secrets, internal processes, patents, and copyrights. It can also fire employees, without cause in many states. Just because lawyers write forms using standard wording for insurance policies, employment contracts, leases, releases, non-waivers, hold harmless, etc., every clause on these pieces of paper is not always legal and enforceable. Many of these papers are just designed to provide varying levels of closure or discourage you from standing up for your rights.
Just the same, if you think you might be be having trouble with your employer, consult a lawyer, don't take my word.
Regarding legal costs, there are two kinds of expenses, actual court costs (bureaucracy) and the cost of making your case (the big one). In civil actions the parties bear their own costs in making their cases, but the court does have some discretion. Court costs are usually paid by the loser, but discretion is often left to the court. I believe Specialized's claims are so jury-rigged, based on unenforceable contract language, conversions of resources that caused little or no provable damage, and trade secrets that either weren't secret or were never accessible to the defendants, that Volagi will lose a lot less than what Specialized is demanding. Now if this case were being heard in a more employer-friendly jurisdiction like, say, Texas, some more of this junk would stick. But not in California.
Yes, Choi and Forsman were ******bags, but you can't make a claim against that without provable damages and enforceable agreements. And yes, Specialized might be a bigger ******bag, but the court doesn't care about that.