Question 1

Is the FTC's 2024 non-compete rule still in effect?

Accepted Answer

No. A federal court in the Northern District of Texas (not the Eastern District as some early coverage said) set the rule aside nationwide in Ryan, LLC v. FTC (Aug 20, 2024). The FTC voted 3-1 to abandon its appeal on Sept 5, 2025, and the rule was formally removed from the Code of Federal Regulations on Feb 12, 2026 (Doc 2026-02866). The FTC retains case-by-case Section 5 authority but the regulatory ban is gone.

Question 2

Can I just rely on California law if I'm a California resident?

Accepted Answer

Mostly yes. California's Bus & Prof Code § 16600 voids almost all non-competes by statute, and 2024 amendments (AB-1076 + SB-699) made the rule extraterritorial — even if your contract specifies Texas law, a CA forum will disregard the choice-of-law clause. But edge cases exist: sale-of-business carve-outs (§16601) and partnership-dissolution (§16602) survive, and trade-secret protection is separate from the non-compete. An attorney can read your specific contract.

Question 3

I signed in one state and now live in another. Which state's law applies?

Accepted Answer

It depends on the forum. Some states (CA, MN) explicitly disregard out-of-state choice-of-law clauses for their residents on non-compete contracts. Other states honor your contract's choice-of-law clause unless it violates strong local public policy. The decoder asks for both your state-of-execution and your current state and uses the more protective forum if available — but a real attorney is the right call when there's a multi-state collision.

Question 4

Does the decoder give legal advice?

Accepted Answer

No. The decoder applies a 6-input decision tree against the canonical state matrix. It surfaces the primary statute, the doctrine, and the most common gotchas. It cannot read your specific contract language, weigh facts a real attorney would weigh, or guarantee a court outcome. The output is informational research, not legal advice.

Question 5

What is garden leave and which states require it?

Accepted Answer

Garden leave is when your employer pays you during the non-compete period — effectively buying the restriction. Massachusetts (M.G.L. c. 149 § 24L) requires either 50% of your highest 2-year base salary OR mutually-agreed-upon consideration. Washington's pre-2027 regime requires garden-leave-style pay only if the non-compete is enforced after a layoff. Most states do not require garden leave at all; the consideration requirement varies.

Question 6

Why do some state values say 'estimate, not measured'?

Accepted Answer

Several states (Colorado HCE threshold, Washington salary cutoff, Maine and Rhode Island federal-poverty-level multipliers, Maryland minimum-wage multiplier, Virginia average-weekly-wage threshold) update their dollar values annually based on a state agency's annual notice. We mark those values as Tier C estimates and re-verify on a quarterly cycle. See methodology for the discipline.

Question 7

Why isn't every state in the dataset?

Accepted Answer

We add states only after we've fetched the primary statute and verified the verbatim citation. Fabricating citations to fill the matrix would be worse than indeterminate. The 19 states currently covered are the ones with the highest-priority worker-side concerns (absolute bans, threshold regimes, and the major reformation/blue-pencil anchors). Additional states join the dataset as they're verified.

Question 8

Is information I enter into the decoder logged?

Accepted Answer

No. The decoder runs entirely client-side in your browser. We never log your salary, industry, contract duration, or garden-leave answer. Aggregate analytics record only the state code and verdict bucket — never your personalized inputs.

Frequently asked questions