in this video I'm gonna take a look as technical breaches of the law technical
breaches are employment law and what is the outcome in other words if there's no
prejudice no disadvantage of or to the employee if there's a technical breach
are they entitled to compensation
I came across a decision Darrin to be recently in the labor court it was a
case involving miss Barnes miss Bridget burns against her employer now what
happened was she brought a claim against her employer to the workplace relation
situation and the claim was for the failure of the employer to give her a
written statement of employment in accordance with the terms of in from
terrorism employment information act 1994 now that particular right and the
further statutory instrument set how about 20 things there are durables that
should be included in the statement and in this particular instance the employer
did give us contracts a written contract a written statement but included or
excluded about three things one of the things that it failed to do for example
was to stipulate or set out the correct name of the company in other words the
letters CD and the word Ireland in brackets was excluded from the statement
so this was one of the basis of the claim that the company had failed in its
duty to give a written statement the other was that the annual leave here was
not in accordance with the legislation which in the organization of working
time Act 1997 it stated that the lead here runs from the first paper to the
31st of March and in this particular workplace is running from 1st of January
to 31st of December which is a very very common case incident or occurrence
rather than be in the workplace now miss burns was successful in her claim if you
could call her success after WRC because the adjudicator found that yes indeed
there was a technical breach of the law these treaties were not dealt with in
the statement from the employer and the employees claim was well-founded
but the award for relatively trivial technical breaches which resulted in no
loss or prejudice or detriment to the employee the award granted to her was
200 euros so miss Boren has decided to appeal this decision to the Labour Court
and the Labour Court and relatively recently issued a decision in this in
the labor court ruling they refer to previous case involving a man called
Patrick wall versus Eric water and a similar situation had obtained in that
situation and that mr. wall wasn't he given a written statement of employment
but it was imperfect in doors insofar as was two or three elements of it that
were missing but was no detriment or no loss or no prejudice for the employee in
that particular case the Patrick hauled his opposite wall to the Irish Water
case anyway the Labour Court took the view that the common law principle of de
minimis non curat Lex that means the law is not concern itself with trifles
should apply so it basically held that in a situation where there is technical
breaches of the law and where it is no loss to the employee then it may well be
the case that no compensation is payable now in the Bridget Barnes case this is
precisely what the Labour Court held and they applied the same sort of thinking
the same sort of principle the same sort of common law principle and referred to
either a high court or Supreme Court case which set out the principle that
the law does not concern itself with trifles at the Labour Court in this
particular decision actually reduced miss Barnes award by the WRC adjudicator
from 200 euros down and nil so she went away from the Labour
Court empty-handed so this is a situation where as I say it's a
technical breach in the law however there was no loss or prejudice or
detriment to the employee and the Labour court they take this view that if there
isn't then compensation is not appropriate and in this case as I say
reduced the award from 200 euros to nil I hope you find this video useful and if
you do give it a thumbs up down below and you may be interested in subscribing
to my youtube channel or even leaving a comment down below and just decoration
to this case and the other case the Patrick Hall or Patrick Walker case
versus Irish water in this case involving miss burns both of these cases
are linked from a blog post and I've just written and published on employment
rights Ireland calm you can have a look at the blog post you can read it in more
detail than I'm explaining here you'll see the principles set out by the Labour
Court and you'll be able to read the actual decisions in both cases they're
very very useful if you're an employer or if you're an employee clearly if
you're an employer and you've given a contract of employment to an employee
and it is somehow imperfect or leaves out one or two things clearly it's open
to you to make an argument that the breach of the Act breaches the law it's
trivial and technical and should not require our resort in compensation if
you're the employee obviously you're going to have a different argument but
the bottom line is you'll have a difficulty if the WRC follows the
approach of the Labour Court and it's quite likely that you will see you can
check out the blog post on my web site employment rights Ireland calm I leave a
link down below and that blog post interned and we'll link to the two cases
hope you find this useful