Benefits And Contracts

[sherpadog]

What is the name of your state? New York
i am employed as a nurse in an agency, and this agency supplies nurses to diffrent nursing home and hospitals. i started working for them in march 2006. since that time, i have never gotten my paid sick or vacation leave. i have asked them for it but was always told its not in my contract. this is the part of my contract which states about our benefits: "the employer agrees to provide the employee with such benefits as are ordinarily accorded to its full time employees, including individual medical and dental insurance of the total monthly insurance premium shared equally between the employer and the employee, unemployment insurance, disability and worker's compensation benefit. additional retirement plan (401K) benefit is optional"

the 'full time employees' the contract is talking about are the personnel running the office/agency and they do have paid sick and vacation leave. do i have the right to claim the paid sick and vacation leave according to the contract and under the state law? if so, could i still claim the paid sick and vacation leave that i should have in the past two years? what can you suggest i should do in this case? they are adamant in not giving this benefit.

also, i somehow signed two contracts with the same agency. there are major differences between the two contracts (like the existence of the paid sick and vacation leave clause which can be noted in the first contract, no longer in the second one). the second contract did not nullify the first contract. my question is, in the event of two existing contracts, which contract is in effect?

thank you very much in looking into my case. more power.

 

[cbg]

I don't see anything about vacation or sick time in the section you quoted.

No state law (in any state) requires an employer to provide any employees with either vacation or sick time. It is also legal for the employer to have different benefits for different classes of employees.

But you are free to show the contract to an attorney in your state and see what he says.

 

[CameronNewport]

I don't see anything about vacation or sick time in the section you quoted.

No state law (in any state) requires an employer to provide any employees with either vacation or sick time. It is also legal for the employer to have different benefits for different classes of employees.

But you are free to show the contract to an attorney in your state and see what he says.

The OP is probably hoping that the sick/vacation leave would be covered under the clause:

with such benefits as are ordinarily accorded to its full time employees

Although a list of included benefits follows that quote, there is nothing there to suggest that benefits not listed are not included. Also, since the 401k is specifically excluded, there is an implication that benefits which are not included would be specifically excluded.

Based purely on the quoted portion of the contract, I would say she has a better than 50% chance of winning. Especially when considering that ambiguous contracts are construed against the author. However, the OP should be aware that if she presses the issue, there is a good chance that her services will not be used in the future.

 

[cbg]

(Sarcasm blue light ON)

Well, gee, it never even occurred to me that she might be hoping that phrase included vacation and sick benefits. How good of you to bring it to my attention!

(Sarcasm blue light OFF)

Since the contract then went into a great deal of detail as to what was included under that phrase and did not list the vacation and sick pay benefits, I don't see where she has much of an expectation that benefits NOT listed ARE included.

However, since I assume you will agree that neither of us can accurately interpret an agreement that we have not read, I still maintain that only an attorney in her state who has read all the applicable documents can say for certain.

 

[CameronNewport]

(Sarcasm blue light ON)

Well, gee, it never even occurred to me that she might be hoping that phrase included vacation and sick benefits. How good of you to bring it to my attention!

(Sarcasm blue light OFF)

No need to turn you sarcastic lights on and off. You completely ignored that part of the contract as if it had no relevance to the issue.

Since the contract then went into a great deal of detail as to what was included under that phrase and did not list the vacation and sick pay benefits, I don't see where she has much of an expectation that benefits NOT listed ARE included.

That is certainly one way to interpret what the OP shared, but it's probably not the way a judge would do so. (1) If the OP were only meant to have those benefits specifically named, then there would be no need to preface the list by stating that the OP would receive the same benefits ordinarily given to other employees. The implication is that the OP will receive all the same benefits, except for the 401k. As such, the list of included benefits appears to be for informational purposes rather than an exhaustive list. (2) As I already mentioned, when there is an ambiguity in a contract, the ambiguity is construed against the author. The employer is presumably the author of what the OP signed, and there is clearly an ambiguity. Therefore, all else being equal, the OP's interpretation would win.

However, since I assume you will agree that neither of us can accurately interpret an agreement that we have not read, I still maintain that only an attorney in her state who has read all the applicable documents can say for certain.

That goes without saying. Nothing written in these forums should be considered a replacement for hiring an attorney.