Mr A Osvald v Holden and Co LLP — 2022

The tribunal found that Mr A Osvald and Holden and Co LLP reached an oral employment contract by 15 November 2021, confirmed through the meeting on 13 November and the email exchange the same day. It accepted that the essential terms had been agreed, including the role as trainee solicitor, the salary, reduced hours, the start date, the Hastings office location, a parking space, payment of law society exam costs, and pension contributions. The respondent’s later suggestion that the arrangement was only exploratory was rejected.

When the written contract was sent in January 2022, the tribunal found that it introduced a change to the agreed place of work by referring to the Ashford office. It accepted the claimant’s evidence that Hastings had been agreed because he needed to do school drop-offs and pick-ups, and found that the respondent knew about that restriction. The judge concluded that sending the written document with the altered location, and refusing to amend it, amounted to a fundamental breach of an express term of the contract.

The tribunal found that the claimant reacted promptly, objected to the change, and returned the keys on 17 January 2022 before starting work. It therefore held that there was no waiver by delay and that the claimant was entitled to treat the contract as at an end. The breach of contract complaint was therefore well founded and succeeded. Damages were not decided at this hearing; the tribunal noted, in case remedy had to be dealt with later, that the loss appeared to flow from the constructive wrongful dismissal itself rather than from any separate implied-term breach.