Breached Contract

[Anonymous]

Is a nanny required to give any to full notice period (4 weeks) if employers are violation of contract. They withdrew the raise they offered in January and no longer offering metro reimbursement. The nanny is unsure how to proceed since she has tried multiple times with employers to come to an amicable agreement for fair pay/benefits. This nanny has served with this family for close to three years. Advice is greatly welcomed!

[Anonymous]

1. Get a new job.
2. Quit. No notice is required. Nanny employers can fire you with zero notice and nannies can quit with zero notice. By law, most nannies are “at will” workers.

[Anonymous]

Was this in writing? You either take it to court and risk being terminated or find a new job and quit. I would give 1-2 weeks notice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Was this in writing? You either take it to court and risk being terminated or find a new job and quit. I would give 1-2 weeks notice.

-1

Sorry, but I strongly disagree w/this advice.
If the other party is not holding up their side of a mutual contract,
then by all means the contract is null + void.

The Nanny may immediately walk.
Do not be afraid of court stories - no Nanny has ever been sued in a court of law for not giving notice for leaving.

The only downside I see here is a possible loss of a reference.
You will likely have a three-year gap on your employment resume.

So sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was this in writing? You either take it to court and risk being terminated or find a new job and quit. I would give 1-2 weeks notice.

-1

Sorry, but I strongly disagree w/this advice.
If the other party is not holding up their side of a mutual contract,
then by all means the contract is null + void.

The Nanny may immediately walk.
Do not be afraid of court stories - no Nanny has ever been sued in a court of law for not giving notice for leaving.

The only downside I see here is a possible loss of a reference.
You will likely have a three-year gap on your employment resume.

So sorry.

Good advice. Parents need to understand that there are disgruntled former employers out there. How can nannies protect themselves from bad employers? They can't.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Was this in writing? You either take it to court and risk being terminated or find a new job and quit. I would give 1-2 weeks notice.

-1

Sorry, but I strongly disagree w/this advice.
If the other party is not holding up their side of a mutual contract,
then by all means the contract is null + void.

The Nanny may immediately walk.
Do not be afraid of court stories - no Nanny has ever been sued in a court of law for not giving notice for leaving.

The only downside I see here is a possible loss of a reference.
You will likely have a three-year gap on your employment resume.

So sorry.

I am an attorney. The contract does NOT become null and void, and the nanny may NOT immediately walk.
The employers breached the contract, and the nanny can ask for damages in a civil suit (since negotiations failed). But if the nanny breaches the notice obligations, she also is in breach of the contract and the employers will have to place a dollar amount of what damage that cost them and try to recover that from the nanny in a civil suit. In reality, they will not sue the nanny, as it is not worth the effort. It costs money to file a lawsuit, and the damages of the nanny leaving is hard to prove in court. Plus even if they "won" in court, they still need to go through a process to actually get the money from the nanny if she refuses and simply does not pay up.

But breach of contract aside, if the nanny walks without giving full notice, the current employers will always bring that up when and if they get a call for a reference check. Believe me, if I ever hear that a nanny gave zero notice and walked out, no matter how special or qualified the nanny candidate is, I would never hire her. If the nanny had to give 4 weeks in the contract, but explains to me why she only gave 2 weeks notice, that would not prevent me from hiring the person. But zero notice is a big F you to the employer that shows that the nanny is vindictive and petty and does not have good judgment to think about the consequences to the nanny herself as well.

So if I were the nanny, I would try to give them the full 4 weeks notice. and if you find a new MB that wants you to start sooner, then leave before the 4 weeks are up, but only if they old employers by that time had at least 2 weeks to find a replacement. 2 weeks is not too bad. Anything less, unless the parents super luck out with a new person that can start so soon (very very unlikely scenario),you really are causing harm to the parents with that short notice.

Totally irrelevant, but why did they pull the metro benefits and such? Do they not understand how a signed contract works? Or they think they are above the law?

[Anonymous]

Also, if say A offers something to B with conditions, and B says I don't like all of those conditions, I can only do some of it, at that point, A's offer has been "counteroffered" and A can argue that it is not longer a valid offer that can be accepted by B. After a "counteroffer" happens, A can totally not provide the same original offer again.

So in this case, depending on how the exchange went, Nanny might think that the "offer" was withdrawn. But unless you signed the contract with the new higher rate, if it was just their "offer" which the Nanny did not "accept" to make the new terms binding, the Nanny does not have legal recourse to enforce the higher rate or claim that the contract was "breached" - unless of course, there was a new contact between the two with this higher rate.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also, if say A offers something to B with conditions, and B says I don't like all of those conditions, I can only do some of it, at that point, A's offer has been "counteroffered" and A can argue that it is not longer a valid offer that can be accepted by B. After a "counteroffer" happens, A can totally not provide the same original offer again.

So in this case, depending on how the exchange went, Nanny might think that the "offer" was withdrawn. But unless you signed the contract with the new higher rate, if it was just their "offer" which the Nanny did not "accept" to make the new terms binding, the Nanny does not have legal recourse to enforce the higher rate or claim that the contract was "breached" - unless of course, there was a new contact between the two with this higher rate.

The above was added because first I thought they had a signed contract with the new higher rate, then it suddenly occurred to me that the Nanny could be mistakenly calling this a breach of contract because the verbal offer was withdrawn, but that they never came to terms/agreement on what the amended contract should be. In that case, the old contract still stands, and in the view of the law, withdrawing that offer is not actually a breach of contract situation.

[Anonymous]

Omg!! As this lingo and none sense. Nannies are “at will” employees who can be fired for any reason or no reason at all without any necessary notice period needed to be given regardless what agreed upon or asked. This is also true for those who are employing the nanny. However, for professional purposes and sake of a reference on both ends it’s always best to give notice at least 2 weeks like any working setting/field. Nanny contracts are not enforceable beyond the federal laws (OT, minimum wages, taxes, mistreatment, abuse etc), but it also doesn’t trump them being “at will”. Nanny contract are merely meant to lay terms and conditions for like mindedness, communication, and transparency.

[Anonymous]

What if the employers are physically and emotionally abusive? Would you still give any notice? As a nanny of 15 years this is the first time I've been physically (they placed miralax in high doses into my milk that I kept in their fridge...I had to go home it was so toxic...has some of the same ingredients found in antifreeze), while my employer smiled as I was relieved to go home. I think there must be excusable reasons to leave without notice.

[Anonymous]

If I was worried about being sued for not giving my full notice I would make sure to be fired . I just wouldn’t show up, let them fire me. You can’t physically make me work .

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if the employers are physically and emotionally abusive? Would you still give any notice? As a nanny of 15 years this is the first time I've been physically (they placed miralax in high doses into my milk that I kept in their fridge...I had to go home it was so toxic...has some of the same ingredients found in antifreeze), while my employer smiled as I was relieved to go home. I think there must be excusable reasons to leave without notice.

WTF?!! Are you saying your employers poisoned you?!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What if the employers are physically and emotionally abusive? Would you still give any notice? As a nanny of 15 years this is the first time I've been physically (they placed miralax in high doses into my milk that I kept in their fridge...I had to go home it was so toxic...has some of the same ingredients found in antifreeze), while my employer smiled as I was relieved to go home. I think there must be excusable reasons to leave without notice.

I'm sorry but this story sounds unbelievable (literally). You witnessed them putting something in your milk and then you drank it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What if the employers are physically and emotionally abusive? Would you still give any notice? As a nanny of 15 years this is the first time I've been physically (they placed miralax in high doses into my milk that I kept in their fridge...I had to go home it was so toxic...has some of the same ingredients found in antifreeze), while my employer smiled as I was relieved to go home. I think there must be excusable reasons to leave without notice.

I'm sorry but this story sounds unbelievable (literally). You witnessed them putting something in your milk and then you drank it?

+1. Unbelievable. There is no way you wouldn’t taste Miralax immediately. If this were remotely true, you would have called the cops.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Is a nanny required to give any to full notice period (4 weeks) if employers are violation of contract. They withdrew the raise they offered in January and no longer offering metro reimbursement. The nanny is unsure how to proceed since she has tried multiple times with employers to come to an amicable agreement for fair pay/benefits. This nanny has served with this family for close to three years. Advice is greatly welcomed!

If this arrangement no longer works then you should find a new position. First and foremost, if you work in an at-will state, then you can leave any place of employment at any time with or without notice, however, like others stated, you probably won’t be able to use them as a reference. The notice portion is something employers ask so that they can fill your position in a timely manner, but by law, it is not required— the only way you’d face issues in court is if they paid you for service in advance and you did not complete the job because you would owe them money.


If it’s in your contact that they are to reimburse you for metro fair and have stopped, I’d deemed that as breach of contract and I would find that cause for terminating the contract without notice— that’s why I like to put an end date on my contracts and then enter a new contract the next fiscal year regardless if it’s the same. You can also let them know that you are unable to afford cost to and from work.

*excuse any typos