Getting off to the right start.
As a kid, one of my father’s favourite past times was keeping me and my brother entertained over dinner with stories and jokes, some of which could take all night, and almost all of which ended with us groaning at the punchline, but laughing none the less.
He could take a one line classic and make it last for hours, with side jokes and silly anecdotes along the way.
Even now, 40 years on, he can still make me laugh with a few choice words, which lead back to some of his more memorable tales.
One of the shorter ones involved a woman asking a man for directions – after a long discussion, the man tells the woman that her problem is that she’s starting from the wrong place. If I were you, he said, I wouldn’t start here.
As a child it would make me laugh. As an experienced solicitor, it is probably some of the best advice I can give, particularly when talking about things like contracts. Often people come to me at the end of the falling out with the other side, wanting my views on options and next steps, but when I ask them to go back to the beginning and tell me what was in the contract, or what were the agreed or implied terms if there is no written contract, they seem surprised.
Nevertheless, whilst the contract is not the be all and end all, it is the best place to start. There is no point in talking about what you think your rights are, or what you assumed would be the case, or what your friend, or Google or AI told you was the case. Until we know what was in the agreement (which can include things like email exchanges and WhatsApp messages) any views on the legal position is just pure speculation.
You may say that this sounds obvious, and I’d agree, but for the fact that a dispute on a simple point has recently made it all the way to the Employment Appeal Tribunal. In that case, the employee was arguing that he was entitled to overtime, because he worked longer hours than his contract provided for. The EAT disagreed. They have held, quite simply, that the contract does not provide for the payment of overtime, and there is no statute or case law which gives you the right to imply a right to additional payments. So the fact that the employee worked longer hours does not give rise to a right to claim more money.
So we now know
- Read the contract, even if you don’t follow it (see the lyrics from Wear Sunscreen).
- If you don’t follow the contract, don’t blame me if you don’t get paid what you think you’re due (the law according to Stephanie).
- Somewhere, the lawyers who gave advice to the employee on this case may be feeling a little foolish, but of course they may have advised their client not to fight it (some clients don’t listen to us).
- And 9 out of 10 members of the armed forces prefer cornflakes to porridge for breakfast (and if you want me to tell you the joke that that comes from, head to the bar and set aside about 2 hours, and be ready to groan at the end!)
Kleyman & Co Solicitors. The full service law firm. Dishing out good advice since 2007 and bad jokes since I was about 4.