Definition
Mon employment (also rendered "mon-employment" or "mon emploiment") is an archaic common law plea or defense in which a defendant in an action for breach of contract — most commonly a contract of service or hire — asserts that they were never employed by the plaintiff at all: that no contract of employment was ever formed, or that the particular employment relationship alleged did not exist.
The plea operates as a general denial of the employment relationship itself, as distinguished from a defense that admits the relationship but excuses nonperformance. Where a plaintiff brings an action to recover wages or enforce terms of a service agreement, a defendant raising mon employment disputes the foundational fact that the parties were ever in an employer-employee relationship.
In its historical operation, mon employment functioned similarly to the plea of non assumpsit (never promised) in general assumpsit actions, transposed into the specific context of service and employment contracts. It was a traverse — a direct contradiction of the plaintiff's allegation — rather than a confession and avoidance.
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Common Confusion
Mon employment is easily confused with two related but distinct defenses: (1) non-performance, where the employment relationship is admitted but one party claims the other failed to fulfill its obligations; and (2) discharge or termination, where the existence of employment is conceded but the defendant argues the relationship was lawfully ended before any breach occurred. Mon employment attacks the existence of the relationship itself at its inception or in its alleged form — none of the other defenses do this. Researchers encountering the plea in historical pleading records should carefully distinguish it from general denials entered under different formal designations.
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Why It Matters in Research
This term surfaces almost exclusively in pre-twentieth-century common law pleading materials, English and early American court records, and treatises on the forms of action. Researchers consulting historical employment disputes — particularly actions for wages, indenture enforcement, or master-servant claims — may encounter mon employment as a formal plea entry without further elaboration, since historical practice often required only the bare plea on the record.
The term does not appear in modern employment law practice, where the analogous position is simply pleaded as a denial of the employment relationship in an answer. Researchers should not expect to find it in modern statute indexes, regulatory materials, or post-Merger (post-1938 in federal practice) procedural sources. Its appearance in a record is a strong signal that the document predates code pleading reforms in the relevant jurisdiction.
Corpus connections: When tracing the historical roots of at-will employment doctrine or disputes over the existence of an employment relationship, mon employment records offer early evidence of how courts framed the threshold question of whether a service relationship existed at all. That threshold question connects directly to modern doctrines governing joint employer status and co-employment, where the existence of an employment relationship between specific parties remains contested.
A practical trap: historical indices and digests may file this plea under variant spellings or under the French-derived term without cross-referencing to the substantive issue of employment formation. Searching only English-language headings in older digests may miss relevant entries.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence do not provide a dedicated entry for mon employment, though the source material supplied references Bacon's Abridgement in the context of related common law pleas. Bacon's Abridgement (4 Bac. Abr. 196) addresses felo de se in that passage, but Bacon's treatment of pleading forms elsewhere in the Abridgement situates employment-related pleas within the broader framework of master-servant law and the forms of traversal available to defendants in actions on contract.
The absence of a dedicated entry in Rapalje & Lawrence is itself informative: by the late nineteenth century, when that dictionary was compiled, formal common law pleading had been substantially displaced by code pleading reforms, and archaic plea designations like mon employment had largely receded from active use. Their omission reflects the dictionary's orientation toward contemporary legal practice rather than historical forms.
Researchers needing fuller treatment of this plea should consult Chitty on Pleading, Gould's Treatise on the Principles of Pleading, and the relevant volumes of Bacon's Abridgement directly, all of which address the technical requirements and proper form of traversals in service and employment contract actions.
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Jurisdictional Note
Mon employment as a formal plea is a feature of English common law pleading inherited by American jurisdictions before code pleading reforms. Its availability and form varied by jurisdiction depending on the timing and scope of local pleading reforms; by the mid-nineteenth century it had been substantially absorbed into general denial practice in most U.S. states.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
Employment Contracts — At-Will Employment and Exceptions (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)
Joint Employer and Co-Employment Doctrine (The Law Mind Employment & Labor Law Encyclopedia)
Employment Contracts — Arbitration Clauses in Employment Agreements (The Law Mind Contracts & Commercial Law Encyclopedia)
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