Dispute about whether a day consists of 7.5 or 8 hours I've recently run into a dispute for an invoice with a company for whom I'm doing IT contract work about the number of hours in a work day. We agreed on a rate of £N a day, which I had assumed to mean N/7.5 as an hourly rate. However, they have recently said that "everyone contracting here assumes an 8-hour day". The contract that I signed doesn't state either way which one is correct. However, if I adjust said invoice to assume an 8 hour day, I will lose 6.25% of my revenue (assuming my maths is correct). Without this being specified in the contract (or verbally at any point before today), is it legally acceptable to state that 7.5 hours is the standard amount and that I should bill as such, and what can I do about resolving this issue? Also what should be done about going into the future with this work and asking for a revised contract? Can I request 6.25% to be added on to my day rate, or ask to be billed on a 7.5 hour basis, and have that stand up against their legal team if push came to shove? I am invoicing on an hourly basis rather than by half-day/day, and have done many hours of overtime. Thanks in advance for any help.
is it legally acceptable to state that 7.5 hours is the standard amount No. Because you are a contractor not employee, there is no "standard" to refer to. You are only entitled to what your contract provides for, that is £N per day no matter how much time you worked. That said, if there is no word "overtime" in the contract, you cannot use one to justify how much you charge. You can, though, charge for weekend days (unless the contract explicitly prohibits working on weekends). what should be done about going into the future with this work and asking for a revised contract? 1) Learn the lesson; 2) Make up your mind about what you want to be paid for: hours, days or output; 3) Discuss/negotiate contract terms with your clients.
If you were in the office, and ready to take instructions what to do from your manager, then you were legally working and need to be paid. There's plenty of things you can do in an office without electricity unless it's too dark. If the manager didn't ask you to do anything, it's the company's problem, not yours. If you took the opportunity to leave for 90 minutes to do your weekly shopping, then you shouldn't get paid.
How should I proceed? I am asking law friends to recommend some employment lawyers, but other than this, can I do anything else? You definitely don't need an employment lawyer for this. From a legal standpoint, the matter is very simple: If you grant their request (whether by signing or otherwise expressing your acceptance), you would be waiving any remedies currently available to you for their breach of contract. The company's attempt to override its contract with you is quite naive, but the company can always (and evidently does) try to get away with its liability nonetheless. I would not be surprised if the company subsequently tries harder to intimidate you, but that does not change your legal position &amp; merits unless you sign the waiver the company is pursuing. Asking for your post-termination availability reinforces the notion of company's poor planning and subpar management.
None The contractual chain is you &lt;-> warranty company &lt;-> (potentially others you don’t know about) &lt;-> service provider. Should something go wrong, you would sue your warranty company who might (it is up to them) then sue the service provider. Notwithstanding, it’s likely the service company owes you a duty of care and would be directly liable to you for a negligence claim.
It depends to a large degree on local employment laws. Depending on how the counteroffer was worded, it might have constituted anything from a binding legal contract for employment for some reasonable minimum term, or a totally non-binding suggestion that was worth less than the air breathed while pronouncing it. Some things to consider would include: What are local employment laws like? Do they require that termination be for cause? If so, what are causes for termination? Does termination require any kind of remediation beforehand? Note that in an at-will, right-to-work state in the US, odds are that the employee can be fired for any time and for any reason, supposing the employer hasn't accidentally entered into a contract by extending the counteroffer. What did the counteroffer say? Did it stipulate that the offer was not for a definite term and that the company reserved the right to terminate the employee for any reason, or no reason at all? Odds are any sufficiently serious business in an at- will, right-to-work state would use standard legal language in any offer or counteroffer to ensure that they are on the right side of this, so odds are the counteroffer was accepted with no obligations at all on the company. Does the termination affect eligibility for unemployment benefits? I would say most likely not, as the termination would probably be recorded as being for no reason legally speaking (if they admitted to terminating the employee for seeking other employment, interested government officials could take a dim view of the company's actions). You'd probably have at least some unemployment compensation coming your way. Some professional - not legal - advice. Never accept a counteroffer. Only get another offer in the first place if you are committed to leaving your current employer no matter what. If your company really insists, you should insist on a minimum definite term of employment written into a legal contract which is signed by an executive and notarized. No company will agree to this (unless the term is shorter than you'd want as a full-time W-2 anyway) but if they do, hey, you have some security (if the company agrees to this, have your own lawyer - whom you pay with your own money - review the document). Even then, I would be very, very careful about staying at a company after getting a counteroffer. Don't do it. Ever. Never accept a counteroffer. One comment asks why I recommend never accepting a counteroffer. There are at least two reasons: The reason you are looking for a new job should be that there is something about your current job that isn't completely satisfactory and that you haven't been able to fix. Either you have grown out of the position, don't like the work, feel you're underpaid, don't get along with somebody, etc. If you were unable or unwilling to fix any of these issues without having another job on the table, having another job on the table shouldn't be what makes you willing and able to fix them. Why work somewhere that you'd constantly need to go job hunting to address workplace issues? Unless the company makes firm agreements about how long they're going to keep you around, you have no guarantee that they'll keep you. Presumably, you didn't have one before, and you don't have one at the new job, but the fact that you are currently employed might support the assumption that your employment would be continued at your current employer and the offer might support the assumption the new employer plans to employ you indefinitely. When you put in your notice, it makes the company more aware of the fact that you could leave at any time; while a perfectly rational actor would realize that this doesn't change the situation at all, companies are run by people and people often act irrationally. Perhaps your manager is vindictive, perhaps your manager is scared that you will still leave after accepting the counteroffer. Maybe your manager knows there are layoffs coming but needs you for the busy season. Hiring replacements can be time-consuming and expensive - and employees who are getting offers of employment elsewhere and putting in notice might be seen as risks. I'm not saying that accepting a counteroffer has always turned out badly. Falling coconuts kill 150 people every year. Still, I am not going to add a coconut rider to my insurance policy and I am not going to accept a counteroffer.
Dale M is correct. Lawyers get calls all day long from people who want free advice and have no intention of entering into a paid representation. That is what your letter sounds like. I write separately just to add that you may have better results if you make explicit that you are aware of their rates and prepared to pay them. Even then, though, it may be that whatever you'd pay for the two hours to walk you through this is not as valuable as time they'd spend on other matters. If I have to prioritize between a repeat client and someone who will probably not pay for anything more than having one question answered, that's an easy choice.
No The contract is created at the moment that an offer was accepted. In normal circumstances: You accepted an offer that they made to the general public by sending a purchase order for specific items at specific prices, or They accepted your offer by communicating their acceptance to you (being advised that the goods have been dispatched counts). However, in this circumstance, the company has been explicit that the contract is only created when either: You checkout and pay, or They “supply an invoice to you.” It appears that neither event happened so there is no contract. Their specific terms have overridden the common law rules on offer and acceptance (as they are allowed to do) and the offer has not been accepted until you receive their invoice. Specifically, it cannot be accepted by performance (dispatching the goods) and the requirement for the invoice to be supplied overrides the postal rule. Note that, in this case, you got lucky. 99 times out of 100 there would have been a valid contract and you would have breached it. In future, cancel orders specifically, don’t make assumptions.
From your account, you seem to have entered into a verbal contract for this extra work to be done without agreeing a price. According to this article, Canadian courts will assume that a contract contains &quot;implied&quot; terms &quot;on the basis of the presumed intentions of the parties where necessary to give business efficacy to the contract&quot;. To put that in English, these are terms that must be there because otherwise the story wouldn't make sense. In this case the implied term is that the lawyer will be paid a reasonable amount for his work, as it would be unreasonable to expect him to do this for free. Lawyers generally bill by the hour, so a reasonable amount would be the time he spent multiplied by his usual hourly fee. If that is what he has billed you, then I'm afraid you owe him the money.