Legal Question in Employment Law in Florida
I live in Virginia and I have a contract to provide full-time consulting services to a Florida company, signed and dated as/of 1/1/2006. The Work Order has an "Open" completion date.
On 1/15/2010 the company terminated my services - by phone call - because of declining company revenues and a need to cut payroll.
My signed contract says: "Client may terminate my assignment at any time without cause upon 14 days written notice to Contractor, provided that Client may terminate my assignment immediately for cause."
I received no written notice and my pay was terminated as of that date - 1/15/10.
I have requested two weeks pay, based on my contract. Company replied: "If you had brought up this matter at the time of the termination of the agreement we may have found additional work for you to do at that time..., but, as you point out, you were being paid by the hour at the rate of $25 per hour and you ceased to do work upon being given your notice and did not continue to provide services to (company) after that date. Thus, we don�t believe that (company) owes you any monies at this time."
I was in the middle of projects when my services were terminated. These projects were never completed by anyone at the company. There is no reference to completed projects in the contract. Am I legally entitled to the two week's pay that I have requested?
Thank you.
2 Answers from Attorneys
The point of the notice clause in the contract is to be able to prove that notice was actually provided. It sounds like you admit that you received notice on 1/15/10 (although you assert that it was not written notice). Nonetheless, you received notice and acted accordingly, by ceasing to do any further work. My position would be that you would not be entitled to any further pay based on the fact that you did receive clear notice (albeit not in writing).
I would need to see the contract, but sounds to me like you are entitled to be paid the amount under the contract you did not got paid because they did not give adequate notice of termination. Feel free to contact my office if you wish to discuss further.
You can also check out my employee rights blog at www.takethisjobnshovitblog.com.
Scott Behren
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