House Commerce and Economic Development committee intern briefs members on franchise and health care noncompete laws

BURLINGTON, Vt. — On April 18, legislative intern Helen Argrace told the House Commerce and Economic Development Committee she had compiled court decisions and state statutes showing how courts and legislatures have treated noncompete agreements in franchise and health-care settings.

Argrace said she focused on franchise-specific cases and a set of recent state laws affecting health-care practitioners. "For the record, my name is Helen Argrace. I'm the legislative intern for the committee," she began, and summarized examples from Wisconsin, Kansas and California before outlining statutes in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Illinois, Iowa, Louisiana, Maryland, New Mexico and Kentucky.

The overview matters because noncompete provisions can affect where health-care practitioners may work and, in turn, patients’ access to care. Argrace noted that some states now limit or void noncompetes for health-care workers to reduce barriers to care and increase competition among providers.

Argrace described a 2003 Wisconsin decision in which a court declined to apply the state's statute narrowly written for employment relationships and instead used common-law analysis; the court upheld contractual limits that prohibited…