Reasonable Notice
27 The first issue is whether the defendants gave reasonable notice and, if they did not, whether the plaintiff accepted such notice by the terms of Mr Bermingham's conversation with the defendants on 16 December 1999. There is also raised an issue whether the plaintiff is entitled to the order sought in paragraph 1 of the Amended Notice of Motion in any event since the substance of the order is to require the defendants to render services to the plaintiff and thus to specifically perform a contract of employment. It is, of course, well established that the Court will not, generally speaking, order specific performance of a contract for personal services. The Court may, if the employee is required to give a contractually agreed period of notice, restrain the employer from acting contrary to that agreement. However, that is not this case. There was no contractually agreed period and, therefore, the period of notice is what the Court considers reasonable.
28 Whilst the positions enjoyed by the defendants and the length of their service with the plaintiff may, in certain circumstances, have demanded that they give longer notice than they did, I do not consider that the plaintiff has established a prima facie case that the notice was insufficient. Whether a notice is reasonable is to be decided at the date when it is given, not when the contract is entered into: Quinn v Jack Chia (Australia) Limited [1992] 1 VR 567. What constituites reasonable notice depends on the circumstances of each case: Thorpe v South Australian National Football League (1974) 10 SASR 36. Generally the cases are concerned with the period of notice to which an employee is entitled.
29 My reasons for so concluding are firstly, that Mr Bermingham raised no objection to the period of notice on 16 December 1999, save for the minor anomaly. He did not suggest that six or twelve months was needed. Secondly, notwithstanding the defendants' offer to continue to work at the premises, Mr Bermingham insisted they take "garden leave". If there was any force in the view that the notice was insufficient I would have expected that the plaintiff would have required the defendants to continue to operate as they had previously until such time as the period of notice had expired. By effectively putting them "on ice" he showed that the plaintiff could carry on, and was prepared to carry on, without them, save for very limited services. Thirdly, Mr Bermingham accepted that upon the expiry of the stated period of notice, subject only to a possible anomaly between one month and thirty days, (Mr Bermingham not seeking a longer period), desks could be cleared out, which would be a significant demonstration of termination of employment. However, on 16 December 1999, he required the return of keys to the premises, credit cards and mobile phones. None of these actions is consistent with the view that the period of notice was insufficient, such that they should be required to continue their employment for a number of months. Fourthly, the continuing negotiations for sale, when the defendants would have left anyhow, assist in concluding that the period of notice was not unreasonable. In all these circumstances, Mr Bermingham's conduct satisfies me that the period of notice was not unreasonable.
30 If the view be taken, however, that a longer period of notice should have been given, I am satisfied that the words and actions of Mr Bermingham on 16 December 1999 constituted as clear an acceptance of the repudiation of the contract, if there was one, as could be imagined. Mr Bermingham accepted that the defendants would be leaving on the termination of their notice, directed them accordingly, and put in place steps to facilitate the end of their employment at that time. It seems to me that it was only thereafter that the plaintiff re-thought its position and asserted that there had been a repudiation of the contract, which it did not accept. In my opinion, by that time it was too late for the plaintiff to retreat from the position Mr Bermingham had taken on 16 December 1999.
31 If the two conclusions to which I have come are wrong, I do not consider that the plaintiff has established that damages are not an adequate remedy. In my opinion the plaintiff has confused two matters in relation to damages, one being the leaving by the defendants of their employment, which will necessitate, I assume, the obtaining of other people to fill their positions, and, on the other hand, damages which may flow from their having left their positions by virtue of breaches of the alleged restrictive covenant or of confidentiality requirements. So far as the leaving of their positions is concerned it does not seem to me that the question of damages constitutes any particular difficulty. The damages will be the cost of obtaining other equivalent employees and, in so far as such employees may only be available at a higher salary than the defendants were receiving, the additional cost for the period of whatever may be determined to be an appropriate notice. The damages may also include the cost, which the plaintiff has incurred, of employing National Credit Insurance Brokers Pty Limited, an expert in the field, to assist the plaintiff in the meantime.
32 Finally, and this is a matter to which I have referred, I am not disposed to grant an injunction in which it is implicit that services be rendered to the plaintiff because that is granting specific performance of a contract for the performance of personal services. It may be that an injunction having that effect will be granted to prevent the breach of a negative covenant, but that is not this case. Mr Moses sought to submit that the effect of such an order would not be to require the defendants to perform their contracts, but would merely leave them as employees and receiving their salaries in circumstances where they were not required to work, so that no supervision was necessary. This was not the plaintiff's evidentiary case because the defendants were required to carry out certain work. However, if it was it underlines the reasonableness of the notice given as showing that the plaintiff did not require the defendants' services.