Company Told to Pay up

A Manx registered company ordered to pay $81,000 to a former employee has had its appeal against that ruling thrown out. 

The matter was between German national, captain Pablo Mueller and PARC Aviation Services Limited, which has an office on Peel Road, Douglas.

When the pandemic broke out, Mr Mueller had a contract with PARC and as a result of the restrictions, he was unable to fly for Air Japan Co, the company he was contracted by PARC to fly for. 

In March 2020 he was in his native Germany and was instructed by the airline by email on March 19 2020 not to fly to Japan and he agreed to take leave for the rest of the month. He was paid for the whole of March and April 2020.

However, on April 10 2020, the airline issued an instruction to contracted flight crews, which it termed an ‘involuntary leave order’, which said the staff would be paid 25% of their usual payment for the month of May, a figure totalling $3,126,25.

Further involuntary leave orders were issued for the months of June, July and August 2020. In June 2020 again $3,126.25, 25% of the basic payment, was paid to Mr Mueller, but no further payments were made for the subsequent months.

In his ruling last December, Deemster John Needham said that the contract between Mr Mueller and PARC didn’t allow for the company or the airline to make the deductions it did. After subtracting the amounts paid to him in May and June, Deemster Needham ordered PARC to pay Mr Mueller a total of $81,778.50.

Appeal

The company appealed this ruling on the grounds that Deemster Needham had failed to follow the correct approach when interpreting the contract between Mr Mueller and PARC.

It also said that he had ‘erred’ in conclusion, that he was wrong to conclude that a part of the agreement between the two sides contained and exhaustive definition of leave of absence and that he was wrongly influenced by an analogy with employment law.

In his ruling, Judge of Appeal, Justice Anthony Cross states his dissatisfaction in the wording of PARC’s appeal which he said was ‘best summarised in language which we deprecate, that the Learned Deemster’s interpretation of the 2020 Agreement led to a decision that was “absurd and nonsensical” and that no “reasonable person would conclude that, under a contract for services and in particular under the Contract [that applied here], that the Respondent was entitled to receive all the payments set out in … the contract in return for not providing any services during [the requisite] period”‘.

He later summarised that the submissions made during the hearing of the appeal ‘concentrated solely on Ms Murphy’s (representing the appellant) belief that Deemster Needham came to an irrational decision’.

Ruling

Justice Cross, supported by Deemster Caine, dismissed all five of the company’s grounds or found that they were ‘without merit’ and as such, dismissed the appeal ‘in its entirety’.