I just posted this in response to a similar thread in the 'employers' section of the BB. It is more geared towards IT consultants, but the salient points might apply to your case.
Even if they turned out to be a$)*es, it is probably fair if you offer to pay them a fair compensation for the expenses related to your I485 (not the I140, that was filed for the employers benefit). Also, if it was based on a labor cert, they will be able to use that labor cert to sponsor a replacement employee.
Is you I140 already approoved ?
I don't know your situation, but you might want to think about joining the employer anyway and to suck it up for a while. If they fire you after a couple of months, you can keep your GC. After all, you showed any intention to work with them.
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For some reason 25k seems to be the magic number that ex-employers demand from their employees.
There are three different things discussed here:
#1 non-compete agreements for consultants so the old employer doesn't loose his clients to the new employer.
#2 agreements on 'liquidated damages' for leaving the employer before the contract is up.
#3 re-payment of visa and travel expenses.
- If you are in a 'right to work' state, any agreement that impairs your ability to work in your choosen profession is pretty much void (e.g. an agreement blocking you from working on computers running windows OS)
- If you indeed take customers with you, it will be hard to fight a non-compete or non-solicitation clause.
- Re-payment of visa and travel expenses if you leave before your contract is up is fair game.
If you are faced with a letter from a former employer demanding the customary $25.000:
DO's
- shell out the $300 to have a consultation with an employment attorney to evaluate whether you have a shot in fighting this claim. But don't retain him right then and there.
- protect your assets (if you have any). Put cash into your kids names, your house into your wifes name. Buy comprehensive life insurance. This kind of low-tech asste protection is of course not impenetrable, but the more difficult you make it for a potential plaintiff to get to your money, the less interesting prey you are.
- reply by registered mail that you dispute their claim, that you don't think that you are obligated to pay this and that you won't pay.
- if they don't back off, they will send you more letters, re-stating their demand, trying to intimidate you into paying etc.
- keep replying, offer at some point to settle at a lower amount, something reasonable covering their actual expenses.
- At some point, you won't get letters from the company any more but rather from their lawyer. It will contain the same threats, now in lawyerese.
- NOW retain an attorney and have him reply in lawyerese as to why they should buzz off.
- If they file a suit, evaluate together with your lawyer the chances of fighting it.
- offer to settle again, make clear that your net-worth is close to 0 and that the amount you are offering is all they ever gonna get.
- there are procedural ways of killing a lawsuit in the early stages. If your lawyer files for this kind of stuff, every step along the way starts adding up the expenses for them and reducing the potential verdict they can get.
- fight it for all its worth, throw the kitchen sink at them.
- if you have dirt on their employment practices like unpaid wages or expenses, countersue them.
DON't
- just sit there and wait for it to go away. If you don't reply, it is rather easy for them to just file a suit and get a default judgement.
- if they sue you, just freeze up and roll over. Many lawsuits are filed with the plaintiff knowing that they will never collect a penny. A plaintiff like that will back off once you resist them.
- threaten them that you will 'sue them' if you don't know how.
- call them, talk to them, talk to your former manager (do everything in writing with registered mail and copies).
- just move into another state hoping that they won't find you. If they think they can collect something from you (if only your garnered wages), they will send a PI to find you.
These kinds of threats and suits don't serve to collect anything for the company, but rather to beat their current employees into submission.
