Explain the minimum requirements for a legal contract of employment and critically explain the implied and express conditions that should be considered when drafting a contract of employment. Also analyse how a breach of contract might be pursued through the legal system.
Introduction: What is an Employment Contract
A contract is a binding legally agreement between two parties, usually an employer and their employee. The contract is considered valid by the law if it contains the following fundamentals: offer and acceptance; consideration to be paid for the offer made (which must be sufficient not adequate); and the intention to create binding legal relations. If the agreement fails to incorporate one of these elements, the contract is void.
An employment contract is created when the offer is accepted, and this employment contract does not need to be in writing, but having the contract in writing can add clarity for both parties. The written document is formally known as the ‘written statement of terms’. The
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While expressed terms are quite straight forward, terms can become implied in many ways. The three main ways are custom, court and statue. Custom implied terms are becoming more of a prominent feature of employment. These terms are never agreed but slowly they work their way into being part of a contract. An example of this is if all employees get a company car every two year, this becomes part of the contract if it is part of a company’s policy and the employer must keep to it. Statue implied terms can be also known as imposed terms because the employer cannot overrule them due to them being legislation. Some examples of these statue terms are: the maternity equality cause (EqA 2010, s.73); determination of hourly rate of remuneration (NMWA 1998, s.2) and rights of employer and employee to minimum notice (ERA 1996,
A contract of employment is an agreement between an employer and employee, forming the basis of an employment relationship; enforceable by law. Contracts of employment may be given orally or in writing: Employment Rights Act 1996 s 230(2) and commence immediately. Actual written contracts require an employee's signature and the signature of a company representative. Contracts of employment can involve both express and implied terms and can appear in many forms. The express terms, being those which both parties have agreed to, whether by signing a contractual document or acting in a particular way are seldom found in just one document. Terms are repeatedly found in an array of documents, whether they be from the actual formal contract, written statements or an employee handbook. The two latter documents are just some examples of prima facia non contractual documents.
An evaluation will be made of Clause 35 of Afrosa’s contract with Foghorn cars. An explanation will be made of the legal rules which relate to implied terms and exclusion clauses with reference to the Unfair Contract Terms Act 1977 (UCTA 1977). Terms may be implied into a contract in three principle ways. Terms may be implied by statute, there are two main reasons for this interference.
1.1 Explain at least four points of differentiations between contract and agreement with the help of examples.
Even if the union has waived its right to bargain or grieve an issue, the company is obliged to bargain if there is any change. If a mandatory subject has been bargained over and it has been included in the agreement,
Contractual agreement has always been viewed in terms of offer and acceptance. The universal principle to contract law has always been parties may get into an agreement in whichever way they deem fit and they are subject to certain terms as they choose. As far as legal requirements vital to their formation are binding contracts may be formed. Moreover a binding agreement may be manifested in terms of writing or in verbal form.
The exclusion clause is an important device for allocating the risks between the contractual parties. However, the exclusion clauses could mostly be found in written contracts, especially standard form of contracts. Standard form contracts with consumers are often contained in some printed ticket, or delivery note, or receipt, or similar document. In practice, it is very common that if a person wants the product, he may have no alternative but to accept the terms drawn up by the other party even though such terms are disadvantage to him, or he may simply accept it regardless the possible unfavorable position because he does not trouble to read a long list of terms and conditions. Therefore, contracts are regularly signed, tickets are simply accepted, or a tick-box on a website is clicked, commonly between large companies and individual consumers.
The English contract Offer and Acceptance General principles There are three basic essentials to the creation of a contract which will be recognised and enforced by the courts. These are: contractual intention, agreement and consideration. The Definition of an Offer. This is an expression of willingness to contract made with the intention (actual or apparent) that it shall become binding on the offeror as soon as the person to whom it is addressed accepts it. An offer can be made to one person or a group of persons, or to the world at large.
A contract is an agreement which has its specified terms and conditions between two or more parties in which there is a promise to do something in return for a benefit.
Implied terms – they are not expressed but they are adopted as “obvious” an individual must comply with (e.g) if buying a product and it is not in a good taste the consumer has the right to return it to the owner for exchange or refund.
A contract is an agreement between two parties in which one party agrees to perform some actions in return of some consideration. These promises are legally binding. The contract can be for exchange of goods, services, property and so on. A contract can be oral as well as written and also it can be part oral and part written but it is useful to have written contract otherwise issues can be created in future. But both the written as well as oral contract is legally enforceable. Also if there is a breach of contract, there are certain remedies for that which are discussed later in the assignment. There are certain elements which need to be present in a contract. These elements are discussed in the detail in the assignment. (Clarke,
One of the last remaining strongholds of classical contract law is the notion that contracts require offer and acceptance therefore, in order for a contract to become binding, offer, acceptance, consideration and intention to create legal relations must exist. However contracts are formed in different ways for each different circumstance. (Shawn Bayern, Offer and Acceptance in Modern Contract Law: A Needles Concept, 103 Cal. L. Rev. 67, 102 (2015)
A valid contract is an agreement including promises made between two or more parties with an intention of certain legal rights and legal responsibility that are enforceable. For there to be a contract – that must contain four essential elements- offer, acceptance, intention to create legal relations and consideration.
A contract is generally considered to be an exchange of promises or an agreement between parties which in due course legally binds the parties; this can be enforced by the English Law. A contract is always, referred to the basic foundations of Contract Law, which refers to promises being kept amongst two parties. It is clear that all people make contracts nowadays and do not even consider for a moment that they are forming contracts; these can be formal or informal, oral or written.
Contracts and agreements have many key differences. A contract is an agreement between two parties that is legally binding. In order for a contract to be valid and have legal standing, it must have four requirements; consideration, contractual capacity, and legality. Without all four of these requirements it is not considered a contract and has no legal standing. An agreement is an understanding or some type of arrangement between two or more parties and does not need to have the four requirements that a contract must have. Most of the time, agreements are informal and not enforceable by law.
How difficult (or easy) is it for an employer to prevent an employee working for others (or themselves), both during the employment and after it has ended? Refer to relevant cases and legislation.