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Contract Law Assignment : Plaintiff

   

Added on  2021-04-24

11 Pages2406 Words43 Views
qwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnmqwertyuiopasdfghjklzxcvbnContract LawDispute in finance department of Hotel(Student Details: )

Contract LawDisputeIn the past, I had worked in the finance department of a hotel, where I came across a dispute related to the confidentiality breach by the employee who was set to leave the company. The employee also had been working in the finance department, where he had the access to employeerecords and also of the salary packages of each of the clients. He decided to leave the hotel and therefore submitted his resignation. Within two weeks of leaving the hotel, he joined a rival hotel. It later came to the knowledge of the hotel in which this employee was earlier working thatthe employee had downloaded the details of the employees and also of their salary packages. Further, this employee had used this highly confidential information in the competitor hotel in order to get the talent from this hotel to the competitor hotel. This resulted in a dispute being raised as the hotel asked the ex-employee to return all of the confidential files, which were in his possession, along with the files which he had downloaded on the external storage devices. After a few days, this request of the hotel was fulfilled by the ex-employee. Once this happened, the hotel initiated action against the ex-employee and claimed:$5,000, which was the salary paid to the employee following his resignation when he hadalready started his employment with new employer;They also sought an injunction order to restrain the employee from using the confidential information; Nominal damages; and Costs. Page 2

Contract LawView of the Plaintiff and the DefendantPlaintiffThe plaintiff in this case was the hotel where the employee worked earlier. They based their case on the contract law entirely. An employer-employee relation is governed by the employment contract, which covers the termsand conditions of the employment of the employee under the employer. This document gives both the employer and employees, certain duties and responsibilities, which have to be fulfilled. Where this is not done, the other party can claim damages for the breach of contract. This is because an employment contract is a promise between the employer and the employee, where theemployee promises to perform their job, and the employer in return promises to pay the salary to the employee. There are majorly two types of terms in any contract, including the employment contract. These are the express terms, and the implied terms. The express terms are such terms inthe contract which are explicitly covered in the employment contract. The implied terms are suchterms which are assumed to be present in any contract1. In the employment contract which was drawn between the employee and the hotel, it was an implied term of the employment that the employee would, during his employment and even after it, would not disclose any confidential information of the employer, along with their trade secrets, to the third parties. Also, it is implied that the employee would not make use of such confidential information of the employer for their purpose. Apart from this, there is the implied term of good faith and reasonableness in the contracts. This was established through the case of 1 M Freedland, A Bogg, and D Cabrelli, The Contract of Employment, Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2016. Page 3

Contract LawBurger King Corp v Hungry Jacks Pty Ltd [2001] NSWCA 1872. The New South Wales Court ofAppeal presided over this matter and found this implied obligation to be present in the contract drawn between the two parties. The most important case which needs to be referred here, owing to the similarity between the present case and the precedent is the case of SAI Global Property Division Pty Ltd v Johnstone[2016] FCA 13333. This case had a similar scenario taking place; however, instead of the data of the employees being taken by the ex-employee, this case had the information of the clients being taken by the ex-employee4. This led to SAI initiating a case against Johnstone for the contravention of the employment contract, the contravention of fiduciary duties, the contravention of copyright, the contravention of duties covered under Corporations Act, 2001 (Cth)5 being applicable on former employees, and the contravention of duty of confidence. Johnstone admitted to all these claims which led to SAI being successful in their claims, except for one of the claims. This led to the court giving a declaration that there had been a contravention of copyright by Johnstone. Further they also held that the duties covered under the Corporations Act and the fiduciary duties had also been contravened. The employment contract was also held to have been contravened by Johnstone6. This led to the court passing an order for Johnstone to delete all the confidential information he had and to deliver all the copies of such files to SAI. An order was also passed to permanently 2Burger King Corp v Hungry Jacks Pty Ltd [2001] NSWCA 1873SAI Global Property Division Pty Ltd v Johnstone [2016] FCA 13334 M Glockner, ‘Breach Of Confidentiality – An Employee Has Been Ordered To Pay His Former Employer $205,647.00’, https://www.hrlawyers.com.au/breach-confidentiality-employee-ordered-pay-former-employer-205647-00/, 2016, (accessed 03 March 2018).5 Corporations Act 2001 (Cth)6 Ni C, ‘Thinking of taking your employer's files on your way out? Think again.’, https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/thinking-taking-your-employers-files-way-out-think-again-chao-ni, 2016, (accessed03 March 2018)Page 4

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