By Howard Levitt and Peter Carey
In days of yore when we were lads, it was not uncommon for people to be employed without a written employment contract.
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This has changed for a number of historical reasons and now most non-unionized individuals, at least at a certain level, have a lengthy complex document that they have to sign when they commence new employment. The part of the employment contract that employees should be very concerned with is the termination provision. Typically, once the written employment contract is signed, the employee and the employer put it in a drawer and never look at it again until the relationship is terminated. Then, that employment contract becomes very important indeed.
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The take-away from this column is that, no matter how logical and well written the termination provisions in your employment contract appear to be, they probably aren’t valid or enforceable at law. We are constantly arguing with other lawyers about whether termination provisions in employment contracts are enforceable. Why, you may ask, with an army of lawyers drafting such contracts can’t they get it right?
That’s easy. The courts keep changing the law. In no other area of the law (except insurance perhaps) have the courts been so active in invalidating terms in private contracts between two parties.
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