Labour Research January 2014

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Law Queries

Employment contract

Q. At the Christmas party, my line manager promised me a pay rise that I feel is long overdue. Now he says it was all just the wine talking. He claims not to remember making any promises except to “look into it” in the New Year. I feel he made me a promise and has now gone back on his word. I am so cross that I feel like resigning and claiming constructive unfair dismissal. I’ve got five years’ service. What are my rights?

A. There are many reasons why resigning and claiming constructive unfair dismissal in this situation would be a very poor idea.

Just for starters, even assuming you can prove that your line manager promised you a pay rise, it is likely that a tribunal would decide that you and your line manager had no “intention to create legal relations” during your Christmas party discussion. In other words, it is very unlikely that the tribunal would find that your discussion resulted in a legally binding variation of your employment contract.

Tribunals must look at all the surrounding circumstances to decide whether the parties intended their actions to have legally binding effects, but the test is always objective.

The fact that you privately believed your line manager to be making you a binding promise is neither here nor there. What matters is how things would have appeared to a reasonable third party outside observer.


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