Employer reference?

Monday, July 27th, 2009 - Uncategorized

Employer reference?

Carole asks: My prospective employer has withdrawn his offer as my previous employer put the wrong dates down on my employment reference. I was deputy manager in the care sector (Mar 07) then promoted to manager 7 months later (Oct. 08-present). I was given a verbal and then written offer of a great new job in the same line, accepted, worked notice etc. My ‘new’ boss said he had a concern on my reference and needed to clarify verbally, my ex boss, who never returned the call. When I spoke to my ex boss, he said he would let me have a copy, which I received and he had misleadingly/mistakenly put I was manager from Oct. 08 for 8 months not 18 months. This made my CV dates look fraudulent, and hence why my ‘new’ boss needed to check as obviously if I HAD lied, I would not be employed in the post due to integrity. I have so much evidence that I was doing this role from colleagues, professional and governing organisations etc. and would never lie on a CV – you risk your whole career in this sector if you do. My ex boss has now offered to speak to the other guy to rectify this claimed “error,” but is too late, the post was offered to the next short-listed candidate due to the time span. The postion was due to start two weeks from offer, and as he had patiently held on for another two weeks to hopefully speak to my ex boss, had to make the decision to offer the post to another person. I am gutted, but can understand his reasons as this made me look like a liar. Do I have a case for negligent misstatement? Thanks you

In answer:
Yes, you would appear to have a case if your ex-employer provided wrong information. Where an employer gives a reference, they are under a legal duty to give an accurate reference.

Your case is further strengthened by your working in a regulated environment, ie the care sector. You have to be centrally vetted and licensed. Hence although employers are not legally obliged to give references, where your job is regulated, even if the employer explicitly excludes providing references in your employment contract, they must provide a suitable reference to allow you to gain further work in that field when requested to do so by a possible future employer.

Job Reference

If an employer gives an inaccurate or negligent job reference, the employee can sue their former employer to recover damages in a County Court. The employee must have suffered loss ie. they failed to get a job because of the bad reference and lose the income that job would have provided.

You need to chat to a specialist employment solicitor. Have a look at the Law Society website section termed “Find a Solicitor.” enter your postcode and select from the “Area of Law” menu Employment Law. Most will offer a free initial consultation, which should clarify if you have a case and its strength. You will probably need your proposed future employer to agree a statement, which says that they withdrew the offer of employment due to issues within the reference, but let your solicitor do this.

Good Luck!

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5 Responses to “Employer reference?”

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   June 8th, 2010 at 6:53 pm

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