I was hired at my mother's work through connections as a RN. It is a subacute/rehab facility. During the "interview", I was not asked any nursing interview questions and was told about what the Director of Nursing was looking for, how she feels about hiring new grads, how new grads leave after a few months costing her time & investment, the recent creation of a nursing contract this January, her anecdote of how much she paid to breech her contract, and to sign the contract and the rest of the papers. I was not told what the penalty would be if I broke it, nor does it say what the penalty is on the contract.
All the contract says is: "[Header: the institution name, motto] [Title] CONTRACT AGREEMENT [body] I, [KitKat, RN], agree to sign up for a two-year contract with the [institution] as a Full-time Registred Nurse. [New body] This letter will serve as a binding agreement that I fully understand that I will be an employee at the "institution" for at least 2 years, unless I am subject for termination. [My signature] [DON's signature] [bLANK administrator signature because no person was present] and a [bLANK witness signature because there was no witness present either]"
I am displeased because I do not feel I was given quality training during my orientation. Also, out of my 3 weeks of orientation I was told during the interview that I will only be paid for 5 days, so the rest of orientation for up to 1 month of orientation there is no pay. The DON asked for personal recommendations of other RNs I know, so I recommended my classmate who is about in her mid-50s and she discriminated her age and told me not to recommend "people older than [her]" because she might not be able to do all the kinds of work needed in this facility.
As each day passes that I work here, I begin to feel more and more disloyal to this company. I wish that I did not feel intimidated to sign the contract, and wished that I asked questions to clarify all the details of this contract. I've never been in such a predicament before or known someone who has been. I was also told by a friend that a contract should be notarized and that at the signing of a contract, I should be given "adequate consideration" providing the prospective employee with something of adequate value in order for the contract to be enforced e.g. specialized training or a bonus, but I was not given anything. This is a subacute/rehab facility that does not provide any special training in a critical or special unit which I think are usually found in hospitals.
I was accepted into a bachelors of nursing program and I believe that I will be able to be considered for hospitals and do not plan of staying here for 2 years, but to gain experience for at most 1 year. I would like to find out if this contract is defunct which will allow me to leave whenever I please without having to pay out a "breech of contract" penalty fee.
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
I didn't say it was illegal to draw up such a contract. But not all contracts are legally binding and enforceable. I maintain that one that requires you to pay to leave your job is not legally binding and enforceable, unless you can show me a case where one was.
This happened to a friend of mine in the tech field about 15 years ago when companies were desperate for computer programmers. He had signed a contract that stated he would have to pay something around 20k if he left his job. He wanted to quit but he was terrified. I convinced him to talk to a lawyer who explained it was total bull, he could leave anytime and not owe them anything. He said the basis of the law is that slavery is illegal.
This contract is not worth the paper it is written on. It does not meet any of the formal requirements of a contract. In order to be valid there has to be a "meeting of the minds" as to what the contract terms are. There is no meeting of the minds here because the penalty is not defined. They would have a very, very hard time enforcing this in any court in the US. If I were you, I would get out now because I'm not working for free under any lawful contract let alone something this woman has pulled out of her....... I'd love to see them try to enforce this "contract".
Specializes in Psychiatry, Community, Nurse Manager, hospice.
That's not the same thing. A scholarship can have a service requirement, or revert to a loan. Employee training is not the same as a scholarship. you have to pay for an ADN, that you can use anywhere. Employee training is not such a commodity.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
I didn't say it was illegal to draw up such a contract. But not all contracts are legally binding and enforceable. I maintain that one that requires you to pay to leave your job is not legally binding and enforceable, unless you can show me a case where one was.
Hospitals do it quite frequently. They consider the amount of money spent on training in the new grad residencies as something that needs to be paid back if the person doesn't stay for the full amount of the contract (typically 1 or 2 years). When I was in school, I was offered an 18-month nurse externship at St. Joe's in Phoenix (it started after the first semester of nursing school) and the requirement was to continue working as an RN for an additional 18 months after graduation. If you left before that 18 months were up, you had to reimburse them something like $1000 or $2000 (can't remember the exact number, it was 10 years ago).
It's not slavery. Slavery would be refusing to allow you to get out of your contract - you MUST continue to work. You can leave at any time, there is just a monetary penalty to do so.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
Here is an example of a contract requiring the new grad to pay back money invested for education if they don't stay for the full time of the contract (see first question on page 2):
Yes, they absolutely ARE legal, and quite routinely used when there is a significant training/education component to the program. In the case of the OP, I would say that it's NOT legally binding, though, for the reasons already mentioned.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
There are also numerous threads here on AN that describe such practices. Here's one thread wherein several posters mentioned that their facility does something similar if there is a large education component to the orientation:
Here is an example of a contract requiring the new grad to pay back money invested for education if they don't stay for the full time of the contract (see first question on page 2):
Yes, they absolutely ARE legal, and quite routinely used when there is a significant training/education component to the program. In the case of the OP, I would say that it's NOT legally binding, though, for the reasons already mentioned.
Not picking on you but I'm not sure how the website you provided is proof of a contract. Of course, the hospital is calling their required terms a "contract" but I can draft something right now, have two people sign it and call it a contract too (that does not mean that it is entirely enforceable nor does it make it a contract simply because I'm calling it one). Maybe you meant that having new grads sign a document, most healthcare facilities are calling this document a contract, in exchange for training/ a formal residency (I use training very loosely, take the OP's case for example) is not a new phenomenon?
Also you seems quite sure that these arrangements "ARE LEGAL," can you please provide any corroboration via actual cases or reputable websites documenting the legalness of these arrangements?
Your contract†will not pass muster in the court of law and if you wanted to leave in the next hr, I wouldn't worry about it because of everything the previous posters mentioned.
To everyone else who has signed a contract:
Courts are very willing to protect employer's trade secrets, customer lists, and other similar propriety. These are sometimes termed noncompete agreements. However, repayment clauses for training provided is something new and controversial. MOST courts based on previous argued cases WILL NOT enforce these clauses because training is seen as an employee expense, something that the employer absorbs as a normal part of doing business. There are a minority of courts however who WILL protect investments made in training employees if the agreement is narrowly constructed†and the investment is "significant". This is where the ambiguity lies. What does narrowly constructed mean and what amount is considered significant?
From what different employment attorneys have said and reading different cases it seems that these arrangements will most likely NOT be held up in the courts but they CAN BE if the circumstances and the language are just right. The issues are the courts do not want to be used as tools for the strong to persecute the weak (Big well-funded hospital vs Suzie, RN), courts have also acknowledged that their seems to be lower wages built into the calculation for those that require extensive training (Yes, courts have acknowledged that those that do not require as much training can command a higher salary than those that require extensive training and that most employers offer a lower wage for that difference, thus employers are already getting a benefit), and lastly employers must prove" their numbers. I've seen different numbers on AN as a penalty for breaking a contract.†I've seen as low as $2,000 to someone recently posting $25,000. I've also heard of huge numbers being floated around like 100k (not to break a contract but the cost of training a new grad). Hospitals must prove to the courts how they arrived at that number.
The contract is not forcing anything. It's not slavery. And contracts that require a minimum employment period or else the employee has to pay a "penalty" ARE legal. But since the penalty is not spelled out in the contract, I'm guessing it's unenforceable as someone else said.
Courts have used terms like "indentured servant," when a penalty exist for breaking a contract that seems more punitive in nature than simply the hospital trying to recoup its cost. The author, a JD, does it when deconstructing a case on page 3 in the link below.
IMO, you should not feel that you have to pay a lawyer to exercise your basic civil rights to leave your job.
Invitale, while the courts have made a distinction between paying for someone's formal education vs hospital/facility-based training (the expense of the latter is more difficult to recoup by the employer from the employee) and some courts have even used the term "indentured servant" to refer to penalty clauses that essentially forces the employee to work for them because leaving would be so prohibitively expensive, signing a contract that contains a repayment clause for training provided is not inherently illegal and if the circumstances are just right IS absolutely enforceable.
Specializes in Nurse Leader specializing in Labor & Delivery.
I maintain that one that requires you to pay to leave your job is not legally binding and enforceable, unless you can show me a case where one was.
Hassey v. City of Oakland, tried in the First Appellate District of California. A repayment clause required for specialized training was found completely legal and binding. Requirements include:
The cost is called a "repayment" for training, education, etc. and not a "penalty"
The cost of training needs to be specified and itemized
The facility should consider prorating the full repayment amount based on total time employed before leaving
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FolksBtrippin, BSN, RN
2,337 Posts
I didn't say it was illegal to draw up such a contract. But not all contracts are legally binding and enforceable. I maintain that one that requires you to pay to leave your job is not legally binding and enforceable, unless you can show me a case where one was.
This happened to a friend of mine in the tech field about 15 years ago when companies were desperate for computer programmers. He had signed a contract that stated he would have to pay something around 20k if he left his job. He wanted to quit but he was terrified. I convinced him to talk to a lawyer who explained it was total bull, he could leave anytime and not owe them anything. He said the basis of the law is that slavery is illegal.