Question

Discuss a scenario in which a contract dispute could impact the employer/employee relationship. Give details of the scenario, the contract, the parties involved, and how the relationship is impacted. identify the following: * 2 obligations that the employer would have * 2 obligations that the employee would have * 1 defense that the employer would have * 1 defense that the employee would have.

Answer 1

Answer:

Consider the situation where an employee is offered employment in a firm under the contract of at-will employment and given assurance that he would not be fired under normal circumstances. There would be a contract dispute when the employer fires the employee for not doing some task assigned to him based on the fact that at-will employees can be fired at any time without giving any notice. The contract is an at-will employment contract which allows the employer to terminate the employee at any time, the parties impacted would be the employer and the employee and the relationship would be seriously impacted if the employer tries to do wrongful termination which may result into lawsuit against the employer. A tort claim can impact the employer employee relationship if there is a breach of duty and the same has resulted into the injuries for the other. In at will employment contract, the employer has a duty to not to exercise wrongful termination based on the exception given to at-will employment.

The employer has the obligation not to discriminate the employee based on factors like age, national origin, race, religion, gender and disability and deal fairly with the employee under good faith. Another obligation of the employer involves not terminating the employee for refusing to involve in an illegal activity. The obligations of an at-will employee also include working in good faith with the employer and carrying out the duties assigned by the employer based on the job responsibilities. Another obligation is to protect the organization’s resources and not to involve in any illegal activities.

The employer has the defense in this situation that the employee is terminated based on the employment contract as the employer can terminate an at-will employee without notice. The defense available with employee is that the termination is wrongful based on the covenant of good faith exception because the employer has promised that the employee would be provided with job security and would not be terminated without any serious violations. The employee can try to establish that he has joined the firm based on the job security assured while hiring and the termination for small issues would be a violation of the promise given.