People accept job offers before quitting their current jobs all the time. The judge is full o’cr*p.
yeah who knows; there was an interesting reply to this topic from former Boston DJ Chuck Igo (had been on WZLX) on
the boston-radio-interest mailing list)
Chuck wrote: (archived at bostonradio.org):
the right of first refusal in this case actually would have rewarded a contractual employee for NOT sticking to the terms of his/her original agreement. the right-of-first-refusal allows for a current employer to
match an offer from a new, perspective employer. the clause asks the employee to present any new, competing offer, in good faith. as per the contract, the employee, in this case Howie, did so and lost.
yet if Howie were to have “kept his mouth shut” until a minute after midnight of the Entercom contract’s expiration - and just gone to Greater Media, the general gist could have been argued that the empoyee did NOT own
up to his/her end of the original contract (ie: present a competing offer).
this “right of first refusal” is simply another way to attempt to enforce a
non-compete. and in the case of right-of-first-refusal, according to the
courts, is quite legal.
seems to me that there is no good end to a right-of-first-refusal clause
unless the current employer has no desire to retain said employee.
- -Chuck Igo
(PS from Chuck)—and for the folks who maintain “Howie is an adult” (signed the contract,
etc) - yes, he is. and by going to Entercom with the new offer from Greater
Media, he’s a stand-up guy, too.