24 May 2023
A trainee solicitor has won a breach of contract claim against his former firm after it changed the office location days before his start date.
In Osvald v Holden and Co LLP (2300453/2022), the employment tribunal found the terms had been agreed orally at a meeting and confirmed by email, including salary, hours, start date, location and that the firm would pay for a parking space near the Hastings office so the claimant, who is the primary child carer, could make the school runs. Osvald also visited the office for an induction.
Four days before he was due to start, the firm placed him in the Ashford, Kent location.
Awarding Osvald four weeks’ pay, Employment Judge McLaren held that an employment contract was formed and changing the place of work amounted to a fundamental breach.
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