The High Court refused an appeal by Domantas Petkevicius over his claim for wages during a 16-week lay-off from Goode Concrete Limited, which was in receivership. The court left in place the Employment Appeals Tribunal’s determination that his Payment of Wages Act claim failed.
Mr Petkevicius began working for the company as a general operative in November 2005. He was told on 19 April 2009 that he might be laid off and stopped working on 4 September. He received no pay during the lay-off. The judgment says the court could not establish whether he received social welfare during that period. He was notified in December 2009 that he would be made redundant and received two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice and redundancy pay.
He sought €6,552 for the lay-off period, arguing that withholding wages breached the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and that the Tribunal had misapplied the Redundancy Payments Act 1967. The Rights Commissioner rejected his claim in 2010. The Tribunal upheld that decision in April 2012, but the High Court quashed that determination in November 2012 and ordered a rehearing because the Tribunal had not adequately addressed the legal submissions or the evidence about the practice of paying wages during lay-offs.
After rehearing the case, the Tribunal again rejected the wages claim in September 2013. It found that the employment contract allowed for lay-offs and that the employer reasonably believed the lay-off would not be permanent. The contract did not expressly say whether wages were payable during lay-off; the Tribunal concluded that interpreting it to require wages would be “a nonsense”.
In the appeal before Kearns P., no one appeared for the company. The court said it could interfere with the specialist Tribunal’s findings only on limited grounds, including where there was no evidence to support them. It accepted the Tribunal’s view that lay-off without pay was the practice in the construction industry, and noted that the contract reserved the employer’s right to lay off staff or reduce hours when circumstances beyond its control prevented full-time employment.
The court held that the employer’s April 2009 letter provided the notice required by section 11 of the 1967 Act and that the employer could not be said to have known then how sharply the construction industry would deteriorate. Kearns P. refused the appeal, leaving the Tribunal’s determination in place. The judgment did not decide whether Mr Petkevicius had received social welfare during the lay-off.