This is terrible news. I do not want to see Breitbart fail and Dana Loesch is great and a conservative national treasure. I am not taking sides, other than hoping this dispute gets resolved, pronto.

IF the terms are as alleged and they failed to renew their option, it’s just black letter law.

But as a practical matter, it is almost impossible to prevent someone from taking another position in their field for more money. News organizations hid behind “non-competitive” clauses for years, but those are only enforceable in very narrow circumstances which rarely would include reporters or editors. They were used more as intimidation and preemption than anything else.

But if the site has been falsely bad-mouthing her to prospective employers, she could own the place in a later civil action.

Dude, I’ve never heard of a contract like this. It’s more the type of contract you’d have as a recording artist or TV performer than as a journalist.

Writers are a dime a dozen, and editors scarcely more. I ain’t half-bad, and I haven’t noticed any publishers flashing fat wads of cash in my face lately.
So the idea of a one year contract, with two additional one-year options … for the love of God, WHY? Was there a risk that the bidding for Dana’s services as an editor/writer might escalate out of control? It makes no sense. And this idea of trying to keep her, when she wants to go … again, why?
By God, that’s just not the way it works in the news business. If somebody wants to quit, let ‘em quit. And if you don’t like their work, fire ‘em.
Contract, my skinny white ass! I worked for Wes Pruden, and there was never a day in my more than 10 years at his paper where he couldn’t have fired more — nor a day when I could not have quit on the spot. That is the ONLY way to run a news organization, and I don’t give a damn what anybody tries to tell you about employee “rights,” let alone a fucking CONTRACT!

“How the hell can they do that in America?”

It sounds more like a Stupid Thing, rather than an American Thing.

But then, these days, those two are virtually identical.

That might be the best outcome for the blogosphere. I think they’re trying to become the next Townhall.com and sadly, they’re succeeding.

Classic MBA “succession fail” scenario; seems to come up every time a company run by a charismatic leader loses the leader suddenly without a designated successor and a plan.

I was thinking the same thing (about the old reserve clause) when I read Stacy’s post.

‘Twas fairly obvious when on the anniversary of a certain “gate” (that really pushed AB into the stratosphere) that things were amiss in Camelot – they ignored new developments in the story, (and your predicament, McCain), until the very last minute, publishing Loesch’s article on the Weinergate very late in the afternoon.

Agreed. But instead of thinking of a TV/music contract, or baseball player contract (comment by Peter Ingemi), I thought of a football or basketball coach contract. If, somehow, under the contract Loesch signed with Breitbart.com, it has a right to her services through October, 2013, then isn’t she like the coach who wants to leave to coach for another team?

If that’s the contract model we’re looking at, there’s a pretty clear template. The coach stops coaching for the first team, signs a contract with the second team — even though that risks a breach-of-contract suit — and the second team negotiates with the first team a settlement of any contract breach (and of course a settlement of any claim that it tortiously interfered with the original situation). That is, a buyout of the coach’s contract with the first team. Often the whole deal is done up front.

When John Calipari moved to Kentucky in 2009, Kentucky bought out his contract with Memphis for $200,000. USA Today recently had a story on how successful college athletics programs make tidy profits collecting buyout money when their coaching stars switch to other schools: http://usat.ly/Sdu2zD.

The point is that under these contract arrangements, you don’t see the coach file suit against the first team complaining that being held to the full term of the contract is “indentured servitude in limbo.” (Second page of complaint — note to complaint-writer: it helps to use page-numbering).

The “indentured servitude” reference seems dicey, as it doesn’t seem like peonage if Loesch in fact signed a contract binding her through October 2013. I better understand the “limbo” part, as apparently it’s alleged she’s not being assigned any duties. But if Breitbart.com’s still paying her, while not assigning her to do anything, what to hard-working Loesch is “limbo” might seem to others a paid vacation.

I disagree with Adjoran’s comment that the general judicial hostility to “non-compete” clauses is relevant here. As I understand it, Breitbart.com isn’t telling other prospective employers that Loesch can’t compete against it for, say, a year after leaving Breitbart.com. It’s saying it currently has a contract with her through October, 2013.

Now, as I indicated in my earlier comment, there’s reason to believe that Breitbart.com is legally incorrect in telling this to prospective employers. Crediting Loesch’s complaint, if it leaves nothing important out there’s reason to believe that Loesch has validly ended her contract with Breitbart.com according to its terms, so she’s now a free agent. But as long as Breitbart.com has a good-faith basis to believe it validly triggered a third year on her contract, unlike commentator kryon77, I don’t see what’s wrong with Breitbart.com informing others of that position (from a legal perspective, that is; I’m inclined to agree with you that this is a terrible PR situation for Breitbart.com).

My bottom line here is that I don’t particularly fault Breitbart.com if it’s using a basketball-coach model for its contracts, so that if some other media organization wants to pick off one of its stars, it has to buy out the contract — as you put it in Update III of your post: “if they can’t have Dana Loesch, nobody can have Dana Loesch.” Such a model may make business sense in the internet media field, as a gig with a high-profile site like Breitbart.com can quickly turn a talented, initially obscure, person into a star, just as a gig on “American Idol” can turn an unknown into a star, an opportunity that carries with it long-term contracts entered into up front.

But if Breitbart.com is going to continue to press its contract claim rather than just let Loesch go and wish her luck, to avoid brand damage won’t it need to explain, at internet speed, the legal and factual basis for its view that Loesch is contractually bound to it through October 2013? One can quibble with some of the asides added to the complaint, but it tells a pretty simple story that Loesch terminated her contract, fair and square, months ago. Loesch is a justly popular and respected figure. It’s hard to root for an organization not dominated by a single, popular and respected person, especially if the organization doesn’t explicitly and promptly set out a competing narrative.

This is how cults operate.

Good point. Usually, the charismatic leader is surrounded by people who might be very good but who don’t really fit the charismatic leader roll…because generally, there’s only room for one charismatic leader. The loss of that person can make a pretty big hole, often unfillable by the surrounding good but not leader folks. I love Breitbart.com. I love Dana; have missed seeing her work on Breitbart and have wondered why. Don’t understand why they don’t use her or won’t let her go. Makes no sense. If it’s true, it’s very stupid on their part. Freedom is what all conservatives should be about.

Leftist pig.

Maybe you need to get Breitbart’s side in this. If there is a contract, then it’s not cuckoo at all.

Happy Holidays to you, too! Though you can probably only read about “happy” at this point,and for quite a while now.