We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 January 2018
Where a contract of employment is brought to an end during, rather than at the end of, a working period, the question arises of the employee's right to be paid for the part-period worked. If the termination has come about because of the employer's breach of contract, it is not difficult to see that the employee will at least have a claim for damages for breach, which must take into account what the employee has lost by not being allowed to work up to the end of the period in question.
1. E.g. a week, a month, or a year.
2. E.g. through frustration.
3. Cutter v Powell (1795) 6 TR 320, 101 ER 573.
4. See e.g. Taylor v Laird (1856) 25 L.J Ex 329; Saunders v Whittle (1876) 33 LT 816, Boston Deep Sea Fishing Co v Ansell (1888) 39 Ch D 339.
5. Re Central de Kaup Gold Mines (1899) 69 LJ Ch 18.
6. Swabey v Port Darwin Gold Mining Co (1889) 1 Megone 385.
7. 33 & 34 Vict, c. 35.
8. (1941) 57 LQR 373 at 382.
9. The Contract of Employment (1976) pp. 132–133.
10. The Law of Restitution (2nd edn, 1978) pp. 387–388.
11. The Law of Contract (5th edn, 1979) pp. 620–622.
12. Cf. Rideout Principles of Labour Law (2nd edn, 1976) who at p. 170 says ‘[t]here is considerable argument’ as to whether the Act does this. The 3rd edition, 1979, is silent on the point, despite a misleading entry in the Table of Statutes. The 4th edition is forthcoming.
13. [1921] 1 KB 423.
14. [1921] 2 KB 766.
15. Ibid at 775, 779, 782.
16. [1937] 2 All ER 361 at 363.
17. (1915) 17 GLR 518 at 522–523.
18. (1963) 30 SAIR 259 at 264.
19. (1970) 12 DLR (3d) 404 at 408.
20. 11 Geo 2, c. 19.
21. E.g. because he was tenant for life under a settlement without power to grant leases binding on the remainderman.
22. The remainderman would claim for use and occupation from the ex-tenant.
23. 4 & 5 Will 4, c. 22.
24. S.2.
25. (1839) 4 Myl & Cr 484, 41 ER 187.
26. (1844) 3 Hare 173, 67 ER 343.
27. (1864) 33 LJ Ch 605 at 607.
28. 6 & 7 Will 4, c. 71.
29. 14 & 15 Vict, c. 25.
30. 23 & 24 Vict. c. 154.
31. Supra, note 7.
32. No debates on the Bill are recorded in Hansard.
33. (1872) LR 8 Ch App 192 at 197.
34. (1874) LR 17 Eq 288 at 293.
35. (1852) 18 QB 425 at 434, 118 ER 160 at 164–5.
36. Ibid..
37. Ibid. at 439, 166.
38. Actually, only ‘salarirs’ is an extension, for ‘pensions’ appeared in the 1834 Act in their own right, in s.2.
39. [1921] 1 KB 423 at 429.
40. (1874) IR 8 CL 40.
41. 5 & 6 Vict, c. 35.
42. Schedule D, case 2, rule 2.
43. Schedule E, rule 1.
44. E.g. Saunders v Whittle, supra, note 4; Boston v Ansell, ibid: Re Central de Kaap Gold Mines, supra, note 5; Re London and Northern Bank, McConnell's Claim [1901] 1 Ch 728; Mapleson v Sears (1911) 105 LT 639.
45. [1899] 1 Ch 775 at 776–777.
46. Ibid, at 779.
47. [1923] 2 KB 766 at 782.
48. [1901] 1 QB 613 at 616.
49. Indeed Treitel (op. cit., supra, note 11) defeats his own argument, by admitting (at 620) that Cutter v Powell would not be affected by the Act, as ‘[a] single lump sum payable for a specific piece of work would not he a periodical payment’ within the Act. Yet if each work period is treated as a separate ‘entire’ contract, the payments are independent and not ‘periodical’ at all. A periodical payment within the Act does not depend on the original payee's continuing to be entitled to receive it: it goes on despite the payee's cesser of entitlement.
50. See note 5 supra.
