Employment as a relational contract and the impact on remedies for breach

The notion of employment as a relational contract has received much academic attention and is gradually being recognised by common law courts in judicial decision-making. This article focuses on a primary question: what impact, if any, could that relational classification have on the remedies available where an employment contract is breached? Given that this question has not yet been considered judicially, and only mentioned in passing in academic writing, this article seeks to probe the question by traversing existing judicial and academic understandings of employment contracts as relational in nature. It then considers the potential impact that the relational classification may have on the remedies available to employees whose employment contracts have been wrongfully terminated by their employer. Three options are put forward in respect of the potential impact on the remedy available for breach, each of which is underpinned by a combined theoretical and doctrinal analysis. First, it is suggested that awards for specific performance may become more prevalent. Secondly, there may be a place for a special category of relational damages. Finally, it is acknowledged that the relational classification may end up having no impact on the available remedy at all

Breach of contract · Business · Common law · Damages · Law and economics · Political science · Project commissioning · Publishing · Relational contract · Sociology · Law · Law, Economics, and Judicial Systems · Legal Issues in South Africa · Legal principles and applications

• Introduction to the study of the law of the constitution

  Albert Venn Dicey•Introduction to the study of the…•1915

  Incluir item

• Psychological Contracts in Organizations

  Denise M Rousseau, Denise Rousseau•Psychological contracts in…•1995

  Incluir item

• Psychological and implied contracts in organizations

  Open Access•Denise M Rousseau•Employee Responsibilities and…•1989

  Incluir item

• Bargaining in the Shadow of the Law

  Robert H Mnookin, Lewis A Kornhauser et al.•The Yale Law Journal•1979

  Incluir item

• The Contract of Employment

  M R Freedland, Mark Freedland et al.•The Contract of Employment•2016

  Incluir item

• Contracts between Businessmen

  Hugh Beale, Tony Dugdale et al.•British Journal of Law and Society•1975

  Incluir item

• The Efficient Breach Theory

  Tareq Al-Tawil, Tareq Na’el Al-Tawil•Griffith Law Review•2011

  Incluir item

• Remedies in Contract and Tort

  David Campbell, Donald Harris•Journal of Law and Society•1990

  Incluir item

• Language Computations

  H Todd Wareham, Eric Sven Ristad•Language•1996

  Incluir item

• Contract after the Fall

  Jay M Feinman, Hugh Collins•Stanford Law Review•1987

  Incluir item

• Good Faith and the Ubiquity of the ‘Relational’ Contract

  Open Access•David Campbell•Modern Law Review•2014

  Incluir item

• Animal Defenders International v U nited K ingdom

  Open Access•Tom Lewis•Modern Law Review•2014

  Incluir item

• Exchange Revisited

  Ian R Macneil•Ethics•1986

  Incluir item

• Non-Contractual Relations in Business

  Stewart Macaulay•American Sociological Review•1963

  Incluir item

• The New Social Contract

  Geoffrey Mcnicoll, Ian R Macneil•Population and Development Review•1981

  Incluir item

• L'anthropologie polonaise

  M Buchowski, Sylvie Muller•Ethnologie française•2010

  Incluir item

• Relational Exchange

  Open Access•Victor P Goldberg•American Behavioral Scientist•1980

  Incluir item

• Employee Protection at Common Law

  Open Access•Braham Dabscheck, Joellen Riley•Labour History•2006

  Incluir item