Employer Sent legal Notice

[MKSmadcap]

My previous employer(ABC) has sent me legal notice Stating "Breach of Contract with ABC Inc". 

It says "You are hereby ordered to cease and desist your employment/placement with Vendor and client". Because I had written a non-compete agreement with previous employer(ABC). 

What resulted to this situation:

I was terminated by employer(ABC) because I was asking him to pay my money. At that time he was holding around $45k of my salary. I even gave a complaint in State DOL before I was terminated. Before terminating, employer paid me some amount and terminated with immediate effective. And I was jobless for 10 days as I had to find a new employer. I found the new employer and started working for the same Vendor and client. 

Now I got this legal notice, asking me to pay $90k as losses.

What I feel is terminating letter I got ( the kind of words used, it says "the work at your client location has ended" while I still have work ) might be damaging to them. 

Your suggestions are highly appreciated. 

[NotAnAttorney]

Consult an attorney @ Murthy Firm or of someone else your choice.

It is very much possible that your employer have committed many things against law, which could be key to slap another lawsuit against him.

[User099]

Your employer has the right to control your work at the Vendor and Client. If employer say's your work is done at the client, then your client or vendor will not have a say in that.

Talk to an attorney and see what the best option is to get out of this mess. You will have to get one to answer that legal notice anyway. 

Did employer run your paycheck's for every month? If you have paper trail as to him not paying you on time will help your case. If you had him hold the money to dodge taxes will come back and bite you.

[gopalakrishnach]

Please contact a labor/immigration attorney. You complained to DOL thats good. Now your employer is playing tactics by scaring you. In such matters the more employers drag such cases it will be more damaging to their reputation in law/labor/immigration matters

[JoeF]

The employer breached the agreement by not paying you. That means you are no longer bound by it.

Contact Sawyer to send a response. Also let DOL know. Retaliation is not allowed and just gets the employer into more trouble.

[MKSmadcap]

On 11/18/2019 at 9:25 PM, User099 said:

Your employer has the right to control your work at the Vendor and Client. If employer say's your work is done at the client, then your client or vendor will not have a say in that.

Talk to an attorney and see what the best option is to get out of this mess. You will have to get one to answer that legal notice anyway. 

Did employer run your paycheck's for every month? If you have paper trail as to him not paying you on time will help your case. If you had him hold the money to dodge taxes will come back and bite you.

Employer also said " has decided to no longer work for this client and the company no longer has a requirement for your skills". He runs the paycheck every month, but never deposits. I use to call him and text him almost every month to release salary, he use to give me retarded reasons. I never had asked him to dodge taxes. I was clean in those things. Only concern is working for same client and vendor relation. The very reason why I continued to work in the current Vendor-Client is because ex-employer said the above in bold. Not sure if I understood the statement clearly at that time. All I took is "Because he don't have requirement for my skills" I he don't have control over me as it does not impact his business. Your inputs are appreciated. 

And one strange thing is, I am in India now! I got the legal notice on 11th November through Email and Postal copy on 15th November. I came to India on 17th November , this is already a planned trip to India. Can you please suggest in this case as I cannot reach out to any attorney at this point of time and also need to give a reply by 21st of November. 

Edited November 20, 2019 by MKSmadcap