Salary and compensation dispute

[Gianenat]

Need advice fast!!!!

Last October when my salary review was due my bosses (3 of them), agreed to pay me a base salary of $56K, as well as pay for my apartment rent of $1787 monthly ( to equal the proper compensation for my stated position of HR MGR. My rent has been paid all year via a corporate apartment lease. Recently this arrangement (verbal only), was questioned by the president in another of our offices. After several conversations between the HR director and other company officers, they decided that this practice would stop but my salary would not be adjusted accordingly.

In essence, my annual salary just went down by over $20K and I am left to find a new place to live in the bay area of California which is quite expensive.

The 3 directors in my office have admitted that they agreed to this arrangement but the higher ups are saying that the directors had no authority to do this. Do I have any rights at all or am I screwed because nothing was in writing? HELP!!!

 

[loku]

By the way, I live in Marin, so I know about the housing problem.

If the agreement you made at your salary review was for a new one year contract, rather than for an extension of your old contract, then it would probably be enforceable even though it was not in writing. The reason it would not be enforceable if it were an extension of the old contract is that then it would be for over a year, and contracts for over a year must be in writing. Of course, if they deny the terms, it is your word against theirs.

If the oral contract is otherwise enforceable, then the question of authority arises. If a reasonable person, with your experience and in your position, would have believed that the three bosses had the authority, then even if they had no official authority, they had apparent authority and the contract would be binding.

As you can see, this is not a clear cut case, and I believe it could go either way if it went to court.

You might be able to get a more definite answer if you discuss this with a California Employment Law attorney.