Occasionally the temporal period of the contract may be determined by the happening of a future event. Such was the case in the B.C. of Appeal decision in Milne v Ocean Express.

The plaintiff had entered into an employment agreement, the term of which was the later of one year or when purchase price of the transaction had been completed. This was one term of an overall agreement by which the plaintiff sold his shares in the business.

The Court of Appeal found in this situation that the parties were in an equal bargaining position. The Court did, however, note the propensity of the case law to find a way of injecting reasonable notice as a term of the agreement, which in this case, did not apply:

  Courts have generally implied concepts of reasonableness, or found some way of protecting employees even in the face of written contracts of employment, as the employer or master is usually in a dominant position at the time that the master and servant relationship is created. However, in the case at Bar, I do not find that to be the situation. We have here a plaintiff who was at least in an equal if not stronger bargaining position when he negotiated the sale of his shares to the purchasers, and the provisions relating to his employment were inserted in the overall agreement which is embodied in the clause 3(d), with its addendum, specifying the term of employment. I read that clause, as quoted above, to mean two things: (1) that the plaintiff is entitled to be employed as the defendant’s general manager for 1 year, i.e. it is a fixed term; or (2) after the first year, the term of the employment is until such time as the purchasers’ indebtedness to Mr. Mine is retired. On the happening of that latter event, the plaintiffs term of employment by operation of the retirement of the indebtedness is at an end.

This principle was accepted in an Alberta case. ¹

The section below on the minimum statutory notice period should also be reviewed.