What is required to turn a job offer into a contract?

Question

I was given a job offer for a fixed 3 year period in the form of a signed contract and I accepted it verbally, but did not sign it.. (The employer delivered it quickly, I verbally accepted it and my employer then drove away in her car.) The next day I handed in my letter of resignation to my previous employer, even stating in the letter where my new job was... and also showed my letter of resignation a few days later to my new employer. My new employer 10 days later coerced me into signing a new contract with a 6 month probationary period. My new employer then fired me within the probationary period. Did I have a first contract when I accepted it verbally and resigned my previous job? Is the first contract invalid, or valid? Must I have signed it, for it to be a contract? Also, the second contract did not recend the first contract. It has no recession clause deleting the first job contract. We are now in court with this and I would very much appreciate your help here.

Answer 1

As soon as you signed the written contract you invalidated the any previous but unsigned contract.

Answer 2

Man, it sucks for you.
To my knowledge:
The probation period was to see your performance. Apparently, you didn't meet their requirements. I work for an intellectual property department. The first "contract" that they told you about would be in the "proposed" section of the agreement folder or whatever. Then the second contract that you DID sign probably said "amendment" or "variation form". Meaning that this was what was agreed to after the first contract was discussed, therefore voiding the first verbal contract. Another thing, that first contract could have been stamped as a "draft", and not as an original agreement. If a contract is not signed by both parties, it is not considered "executed", sorry bud, you're screwed! Yes, you should have signed the first one, that way if you sucked at your job, they would not be able to terminate you.

I think it was very unprofessional of them to not get you to sign the first contract, nor signing it themselves.

Hope this helps
Good luck
If you have any more questions, I can try to help.
Just IM me.