It is indisputable that an employee owes his employer a contractual duty of ‘fidelity’, but how far it extends will depend on the facts of each case.
Lord Greene MR said: ‘It has been said on many occasions that an employee owes a duty of fidelity to his employer. As a general proposition, that is indisputable. The practical difficulty in any given case is to find exactly how far that rather vague duty of fidelity extends. Prima facie it seems to me on considering the authorities and the arguments that it must be a question on the facts of each particular case. I can very well understand that the obligation of fidelity, which is an implied term of the contract, may extend very much further in the case of one class of employee than it does in others. For instance, when you are dealing, as we are dealing here, with mere manual workers whose job is to work five and a half days for their employer at a specific type of work and stop their work when the hour strikes, the obligation of fidelity may be one the operation of which will have a comparatively limited scope. The law would, I think, be jealous of attempting to impose on a manual worker restrictions, the real effect of which would be to prevent him utilizing his spare time. He is paid for five and a half days in the week, the rest of the week is his own, and to impose upon man, in relation to the rest of the week, some kind of obligation which really would unreasonably tie his hands and prevent him adding to his weekly money during that time would, I think, be very undesirable. On the other hand, if one has employees of a different character, one may very well find that the obligation is of a different nature.’
Even obligations under an implied contract of employment preclude an employee from competing with his employer in his spare time
Judges:
Lord Greene MR
Citations:
[1946] Ch 169, [1946] 1 All ER 350
Employment
Updated: 11 May 2022; Ref: scu.554406
