Is a Contract Binding if You Can't Read It?
We are happy to see that the New Jersey Employment Law Blog is back “on the air.” Welcome back.
The first post on its return, by Frank Steinberg, involves a New Jersey case. It provides management lesson as valid under New York or Connecticut law as for New Jersey (“Back to Work – And Read Those Contracts!”).
The arbitration clause of a contract was enforced against an employee who did not have a command of English. Although the outcome was favorable for the employer, a quote from NJELB, in the original bold face, sums up the lesson for employers:
If employees do not have the language skills and ask you to translate the agreement for them, do it thoroughly or you run the risk of having a court refuse to enforce your agreement.
We second the advice and go one step further: do not wait to be asked. The better management practice is to offer a translation if your employee’s command of English is limited to be sure that the employee can understand the contract terms.
Image: Babylonian Contract-tablet, inscribed in the reign of Hammurabi. Photograph by Messrs Mansell & Co.; Wikipedia Commons.
