ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00011295
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Anonymised Parties | An Accounts/Admin Assistant | A Student Services Company |
Representatives | A Solicitor | A Solicitor |
Complaint(s):
Act | Complaint/Dispute Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991 | CA-00015084-001 | 17/10/2017 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 03/01/2018
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Peter O'Brien
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 following the referral of the complaint(s)/dispute(s) to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint(s)/dispute(s) and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint(s)/dispute(s)
Background:
The Complainant was seeking payment of sick pay. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
The Complainant commenced employment in February 2012 with a Company which was taken over by the Respondent and transfer of undertaking rules applied. The Complainant went sick on November 8th 2016 and was paid sick pay for 6 months up to May 2nd 2017. The Complainant received a letter from a Director on May 9th 2017 stating her sick pay would stop immediately. The Complainant has an implied contract that her sick pay would be paid as she was a family member of one of the major Directors and also because the Respondent had paid her for six months the Complainant had an implied contractual obligation to be paid for her sick pay from May 2nd to the date of the claim, October 17th 2017. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
The Respondent had no legal obligation to pay the Complainant sick pay. The Respondent is unaware of and refutes that any agreement exists to pay family members sick pay ad infinitum. The Complainants contract stated” No payment will be made to employees who are absent from work“. The Respondent paid sick pay for a period at their discretion but this did not give a permanent entitlement to sick pay. The Respondent therefore has no legal obligation under the Payment of Wages Act to pay the Complainant sick pay. |
Decision:
Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint(s)/dispute(s) in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.
In order to prove that the Complainant had a legal right to be paid sick pay for the period she has to have evidential material to justify her claim that the pay is properly due per the Payment of Wages Act 1991 and that the alleged deduction is unlawful. The statement that members of the family were entitled to sick pay on a long term basis as per a Directors agreement could not be substantiated and was refuted by the Respondent and there was no written evidence presented to support this claim. No valid argument could be made that an implied contractual term for sick pay ad infinitum existed. While the Contract purports to be of a temporary nature no end date was enclosed in the contract and appears to be the only valid contract on which to construe the Complainants entitlements. In that case the final arbitrator of the Complainants case is her contract of employment which is silent as to an entitlement to sick pay but does state that absences will not be paid. As the contract was silent on the matter of sick pay then no entitlement, in law, exists to pay for sick time.
As the Complainant has not provided any documentary evidence to support her claim I deem her claim to be not well founded.
Dated: 02/02/18
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Peter O'Brien
Key Words:
Sick pay entitlement |