Legal Question in Employment Law in New Jersey

Re: Notification letter

Its difficult to answer your question without any more information. An agreement becomes a binding contract where you have (1) and agreement between two parties, (2) consideration or something of value exchanged and bargained for, (3)contractual capacity (both sides are competent and have the authority to enter into the agreement) and (4) legality (i.e. the purpose of the contract is legal and not against public policy). If your signed off notification letter has all of these things, then it could be binding on both parties. However, if your employer is merely notifying you that you are to be terminated and wants you to sign that you received this notification, then it is not likely to be a binding agreement because there was no consideration that was exchanged. On the other hand, if you are stating that you were promised something and the employer breached that promise, then under certain circumstances the promise would be binding on the employer under the concept of detrimental reliance. For that doctrine to be applied, the following elements are required: (1) there must be a clear and definate promise, (2) the employee must justifiably rely on the promise, (3) the reliance normally must be of a substantial and definte character and (4) justice will be better served by enforcement of the promise.