To all who replied: Thank you for your feedback and advice. I think the takeaway here is that a lawyer should always give you the final word on this, but I will expand upon and clarify some points made in replies:

It's not how you define it that counts. It's how your employer defines it that counts. And without reading the entire non-compete agreement there is no way of knowing if taking that one sentence out of context gets you off the hook.


You're right of course. What I meant to say is that if an employer has a section in the document specifically defining what constitutes competition and it says "any company that sells ice cream" they shouldn't legally be able to tell you later that what they really meant was "any company that manufactures airplanes". The definition of the competing industry should be clear and in this case I don't think anyone looking at this section would infer what the actual business of the company is. Lastly on this point, the rest of the document has nothing specifically outlining the actual business purpose or industry the company is in; therefore, this section would be the one indicating which employment is 'prohibited' during the period of non-compete.


Since the business of providing enterprise mobile platforms is apparently nothing close to what your employer does that makes that part of the contract unclear — surely that is not what the two parties meant.


Agreed, it isn't...but...


The question then becomes what did they really mean? Perhaps some other part of the contract will make that clear.

No. Nothing else in the contract makes any reference to this or specifically mentions what 'product' the company makes and sells.


Or perhaps extrinsic evidence (evidence outside the terms of the contract itself) would make that clear.

Now here is where you hit the nail on the head...there is evidence outside the contract which indicates what the company business is, but then why bother with contracts at all if you can just walk into court and say "your honor, doesn't it make sense that I would get a laptop if they want me to work online?"

Somewhere in contracts law it must state that if it's not in the contract you're not bound by it....



It also might be pertinent that he was laid off...that the company was eliminating all staff in the position he was in. That might make a judge tend to throw out a non compete entirely.
Definitely an intriguing point, but in the cases I've read on this subject I haven't seen that as a valid reason...


Also thank you for the link to the Florida statutes...I've been reading those exact sections when thinking about this. At the end of the day, I will have to determine if any new opportunity is worth challenging this. If so then an employment lawyer would be step one. I think a couple of hours of consultations should be able to give me the basis on which to base a decision.

Thanks all.