Question

In Pennsylvania, the law reads “a written release or promise, hereafter made and signed by the person releasing or promising, shall not be invalid or unenforceable for lack of consideration, if the writing also contains an additional express statement, in any form of language, that the signer intends to be legally bound.” This law is called the Uniform Written Obligations Act. Do you think this is a fair and reasonable law?? Must be 250 words or more, and if you found any of this information on a website, please let me know.

Answer 1

Well there's more to the act (UWOA) than just the aforementioned clause. Yes, the law as mentioned by you is neither fair nor reasonable under any circumstances, but what we are missing is UWOA doesn't override the law of Pennsylvania, which requires good and valuable consideration from both the parties involved. Under this act (Pennsylvania) any agreement made after the commencement of employement would require some sort of new consideration if it is to remain valid. Now this gives more than enough protection to the employee. How? I'll explain. Consider that an employer wants to restrain one of his employees because he/she is an invaluable asset to the company. Now the employer would use any tricks that he can to stop the employee from leaving the organization. For example, speaking ill about him to his new soon to be employer. Now this would be ok if the only act followed was UWOA, or such a clause 'that the employee can't leave the organization without employer's permission' was there in the initial document (usually isn't there, otherwise the employee wouldn't sign the agreement in first place) itself. Such clause can't be added after the commencement of employement if there's no updation in considerations too (like there should be at least some sort of promotion, or bonus or salary hike etc. given to add the clause, that too at employee's consent of taking the new benefit).

With that there one more thing. According to the court 'if any construction of UWOA requires any new and valuable consideration, then it would leave the old UWOA unreasonable and notwithstanding', leaving UWOA way too vulnerable.

So all in all the law is fairly reasonable for everyone if we consider the entire set of laws together. But if we consider UWOA individually, it is surely not fair.

You can refer to this site if you want to (References): http://www.mondaq.com/unitedstates/x/461008/Franchising/The+Last+Word+On+The+Uniform+Written+Obligations+Act+And+Restrictive+Covenants+In+Pennsylvania