The doctor's employment contract included a provision which said that, if he were fired without cause, he would receive severance pay, provided that he did not thereafter provide medical services on his own behalf or for another entity.

The First Department refused to give that provision effect, in Scott v. Beth Israel Med. Ctr., which was decided on June 19, 2007. "[T]he employee choice doctrine contemplates that where the employer terminates the employment relationship without cause, his action necessarily destroys the mutuality of obligation on which the covenant rests as well as the employer's ability to impose a forfeiture."