Bottom line – a grammar mistake in employment contracts can cost employers millions of dollars if disputed. Employers need to be confident that an employment contract will stand up to scrutiny in the courts. That means ensuring compliance with the latest updates in employment laws as well as something as simple as proper grammar. Improper use of grammar can lead to ambiguities and termination clauses that are open to interpretation.  Employers should regularly review contracts and ensure they are properly drafted.

A single missing comma cost this employer millions. In a famous US case, O’Connor v. Oakhurst Dairy, 851 F.3d 69 (2017), the plaintiffs, the delivery drivers for Oakhurst Dairy, sued the company for overtime pay. The employer argued that these drivers were exempt from overtime pay, because the law states employers are not required to pay overtime to employees whose work involved “canning, processing, preserving, freezing, drying, marketing, storing, packing for shipment or distribution of (1) Agricultural produce; (2) Meat and fish products; and (3) Perishable foods.” Since drivers distributed these products, they were exempted. However, the drivers argued that the phrase “packing for shipment or distribution” should be understood as one single activity, instead of two (i.e., (i) packing for shipment and (ii) distribution); as the drivers were not involved in packing, they were not exempted from overtime pay. The district court ruled in favour of the company. The drivers appealed the decision to the First Circuit court. The First Circuit admitted that because there is no serial comma in the disputed phrase, it created ambiguity regarding whether the phrase meant one single activity or two. However, because ambiguities in the state’s wage and hour laws must be construed liberally to accomplish their remedial purpose, the court ruled in favour of the drivers and reversed the district court’s decision. Later, in 2018, the employer settled the case with the drivers, paying them $5 million in back overtime pay. A missing comma cost this employer $5 million.

In a recent Canadian employment law case, Brocklehurst v. Micco Companies Limited, 2025 NSSC 192 (“Brocklehurst”), a missing comma was fatal to an employment contract’s termination clause, leading to wrongful dismissal damages of over $50,000.

In Brocklehurst, the disputed termination without cause clause provided as follows:

Your employment may be terminated by Micco without cause, upon provision to you of the following payments:
(i)	any portion of the annual salary and accrued vacation pay, if any, that has been earned by your [sic you] prior to the date of termination by [sic, but] not yet paid;
(ii)	continued participation in Micco group health plan for such time as may be required under Nova Scotia Labour Standards legislation; and
(iii)	only such minimum notice of termination, or pay in lieu thereof, and severance pay (if applicable) to which you are entitled under the Nova Scotia Labour Standards legislation.

[emphasis added]

Based on the above subsection (iii), the employer contended that the employee was only entitled to the minimum termination entitlements under the statute. The court disagreed. Because there was no comma before the qualifier, “to which you are entitled under the Nova Scotia Labour Standards legislation”, it may be read such that the qualifier does not apply to the notice of termination, but only to the severance pay.  As such, the provision failed to meet the standard of “express language” that creates a high level of clarity, contracting out of the common law. As a result, with other reasons, the termination clause failed, and the employer had to pay the employee’s entitlements under the common law, which was much higher than the minimum statutory entitlements that the termination clause intended to achieve.

In this case, it was not a million dollar comma, but it could be in other cases. The lesson is clear: a single grammatical oversight in legal documents could be catastrophic. When it matters, let the professionals draft it.