Law suit and Legal action Issue with Employer

[rohith9]

Hi All,

I never thought in my life i have to seek a legal advice and fight against a law suit registered on my wife. ANd when i kind of
searching for the legal law firms that can listen to my wife's case and give their valuable views on it, i found out murthy lawfirm
blog is the best one. So here i am with my wife's case.

Let e start from first. As usually, my wife ( before she became my wife) is working with client A thorugh a company B where the
prime vendor is C. She got the job after 3 months of search but there is another layer between her employer B and prime vendor C.
Lets call that company D.

One fine day, prime vendor C came to my wife and asked her to move on to their payroll as their client A wants all the employees represented through the prime
vendor C to be on their payroll.My wife agreed to move as she dont mine since they requested that it will be a problem in future for the prime vendor C.


So in september she moved to prime vendor C and now he is the employer starting from september 2012. The only mistake she made
(well actually i made her to do it) was signing on the offer letter which has the following clauses:

Non-Solicitationo f Clients/Employees/Consultants:
Unless yrru have a written approval, during the course of your employment and one year after
termination of Employment from ***************:
a) You will not accept direct/indirect employment with our Client or any End Client of Client
b) You will not solicit either directly/indirectly any of our Clients
c) You will not solicit either directly/indirectly any of our Employees/Consultants

Employee agrees to comply unconditionally with all of the above terms and conditions, failing which
Emptoyees hall accepta it iegatl iability which includesl osso f businessE. mployeea greest hat any
dispute that arises out of orielating to this Agreement is to be governed by the Model Employment
Artitratjion procedures of the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") and any dispute will be
settledb 'yf inal and binding arbitration held in DallasC ounty, Texas,u nless ************ lects,a s its
sole righ't and remedy, to iesolve such dispute under the Laws of the State of Texas with exclusive
venue being in Dallas County, Texas.


When she saw these clauses on the offer letter, she replied to them stating that she is not in comply with any of those above mentioned clauses. But the prime vendor C
has convinced her to sign it by saying that its just a formality and you can leave the job anytime by giving a 2 week notice period. Even i too told her that all
these clauses are normal in every offer letter. This is the stupid thing that i have made her to do.

They also said that starting the salary will be $75000/yr and after 1 year it will automatically calculated on 70-30 basis which they do normally for every employee.
Here one more thing is, for $65 project that the prime vendor C is getting, he is only paying her $36. Still she didnt ask anything and waited for 1 year so that it will be converted
to 70-30 basis and she can get more. She is on OPT in this period.


In 2013, her OPT extension will be ending on December 2013 and she has to get her H1 filed in april, 2013. The prime vendor C said they have filed her H1 and unfortunately because of lottery
her application didnt got selected. By the September, 2013 one year is completed with the prime vendor C and she started to ask them about her pay increase. But they never responded correctly to her
and they started saying that, we are paying for the middle company D and its not possible to increase her pay. She lost her hope and thought of forcing and demanding them about pay increase. But we
were worried about our next year H1B filing and thought if we force the company they might create a problem for her H1b and may not file it. Here the client has the policy that any contractor can work
only 30 months with them on a project and they have to come back after a year in order to accept any other project with the same client. So we thought anyway the project is going to end in
 june 2014 and just thought of letting it go about the pay increase. So we stopped asking about it as we dont have any hopes. Since after dec 2013 her OPT extenion ends, she joined a college on CPT
status and continued her project.

In april 2014, Prime vendor C again filed the H1B and this time also didnt get her selected in the lottery. But on safe side, i have submitted another application on her name with my friend's company E.
Fortunately that got picked up and its in RFE stage now. In May 2014, we and company E contacted prime vendor C and asked to make it corp-to-corp because she dont have the option as Vendor C's H1B didnt get selected
 and Company E is processing her H1B. We requested vendor C 2-3 times and they have refused to make corp-corp and demanded to transfer H1B. They didnt even understand her situation and rejected every request
that her H1B may get denied if she cant go on corp-to-corp basis and face status issues.But nothing was working out.

Then we and company E decided to wait since just one month is left for the project to end on with the client and after that we can move to company E, as she is on her CPT and its easy to change the employee.
Menwhile, My Wife's manager at the client side is trying in every way to keep her on the project even after that 30 months limit period either by offering a full time or something else. Her manager is in very
much need of her for the project as she knows everything and he dont want to lose her. So he started talking with other groups and though of placing her in that group.

One fine day, her manager called her and said i am working with another group and you will be placed in that group and continue the work. So we thought it will be a fulltime oppurtunity and was very happy as
 she dont have to search for another job and move to different place leaving me. But the other group manager called her and said everyything is worked out and you are good to continue on the project. But she was
 in a dilemma because she didnt any paper wok from the in order to get onboard as a Fulltime employee. So she asked the othe group manager and they told , its still a contracting position and this time its a SOW
project with no limit on the duration.

She was happy in one way but she was worried as with which vendor are they trying to get her on this contract So when ahe asked the manager about it, we already started the paper work and it is the same vendor, company C.
So at that time, we are so much frustrated that how come the vendor company C can process the contract without letting her know before whether she is interested in it or not. So we decided as we are not happy with company C
 on pay and anyhow we have completed the previous project with on their payroll, we though of ging through a different vendor for this new SOW project. And we asked the client manager to send papaer work to different vendor, call F
as we have pay issues with company C. Now company C came to know about it and they started to warn us that we go legal as you cannot change vendors at the same client and you ahve signed the offer letter which says directly or indirectly
you cannot work with another vendor for the same client. So now they sent her a legal notice stating its a breach of agreement and forcing her to change to their vendorship or quit the job.


So my questions are ,

1. Is bonded labour legal in USA?

2. Even though its legal, i have already completed the project for 30 onths thorugh company C and this SOW contract is a new project and dont i have the right to go with my
preferred vendor?


3. Whatever the offer letter she signed has other different clauses that says her annual pay will be $75000 and company will bear the total insurance cost with 40 hours of paid leave. But they have not satisfied
any of these clauses. So can i sue them on the same breach of agreement?

4. Is it good decision to go legally against the company and file a law suit on them? Do i have the chances of winning it?

5. Or i should be comprmising with the company C and do whatever they say.


Sorry for the long post but i ahve to mention everything in order to explain the current situation. Please spare some of your time and give me an advice on what should be my next step.


Please accept my apologizes if there are any gramatical mistakes in the post or didnt pictured the case in a proper way.
 

[JoeF]

You need to call the Murthy lawfirm, not post on the forum.

[omshiv]

That's a small mail you got there. Nobody's going to read this for free...this is not the Law firm..its their Forum. You'll need to get in touch with the Murthy Law firm and their contact details are here.

[rahul412]

Agreements are valid in US, they can file a case against you if you breach any clause.On top of it, your post clearly says that she has abused F1 program by working in CPT. In another words she lost her H1.

 

You need to contact

1. Labor attorney for legal issues

2. Immigration attorney for violating F1 rules

 

She messed a lot.

[pontevecchio]

The Murthy forum is not the same as the firm of Murthy. I suggest you talk to them. You may need a Labor Lawyer in addition.