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Are employers responsible for what their employees ordered from us?

A company ordered some incorrect parts. After delivery the mistake was noticed and our owner went to the job site to figure out what went wrong. It was determined that our customer made a mistake and we could not cover that cost. Our customers employee was at the job site and said that they needed to get the job done and asked to get the parts shipped ASAP. This was done in person and our owner got the parts ordered in order to get the parts to the customer ASAP. Their company owner was aware of the order as he called to ask for a Thursday delivery to which we explained that Friday was the earliest possible. Since then the customer office manager has proclaimed that the order was not approved by her and therefore she is declining to pay. Are they responsible for that employees order?

1 reply

May 13, 2019

I'm sorry to hear about that. Ultimately, that might come down to whether the order was placed by someone who was authorized to place the order. If so, then presumably an order that was made would be binding. But, if the order was placed by someone who did not have the authority to bind their employer to an agreement, then that might not be a valid order after all. Still - a company's acknowledgment of the order and failure to cancel the order would likely prohibit them from claiming the order was invalid to begin with. If there is a previous agreement between two companies before a dispute about whether or not an order is valid, it's probably a good idea to look to the contract to see if there's anything there that would establish a rule to handle such situations. Further, if a material supplier has terms of service that apply to every order - those might also affect the viability of an order placed.

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