RELEVANCE OF THE CASE
Labour law represents a set of legal norms with the specific object of regulating social labour relations. The norms that an employee may violate include legal provisions, the internal regulations, clauses in the individual employment contract, the collective bargaining agreement, orders and directives from hierarchical superiors.
One of the aspects that presents difficulty for employers in labour law cases is the fact that the burden of proof lies with them. Thus, the employer bears the burden of proof both in cases in which it advances its own claims against the employee, and in cases where the employee claims that the employer caused damage to them.
Although there is a tendency to absolve the employee of liability derived from their vulnerable position in relation to the employer, the professionalization of labour relations and the high standard of protection to be ensured for the employee lead to a correlated accountability of the employee, with the effect of opening courts toward engaging their liability when conditions are met and clearly proven.
SUMMARY OF THE FACTUAL SITUATION
In fact, the plaintiff company, represented by Brisc Legal’s legal team, operates in the field of national and international goods transport.
The former employee worked within the plaintiff company as a professional driver.
By the action filed, the employer company sued the former employee, requesting that he be obliged to pay the amount representing the damage caused as a result of his failure properly to perform his service duties, representing the equivalent cost of fuel and road tolls for the transport carried out by the former employee.
The failure to perform service duties consisted of the employee’s unjustified refusal to continue the journey to Denmark, the destination country where transport activities were to be carried out, according to instructions received from the transport coordinator.
PRESENTATION AND SUPPORT OF THE CASE
PROCEEDINGS AT FIRST INSTANCE
In its pleading, the plaintiff company showed that between it and the former employee there was an individual employment contract through which the employee was hired as a heavy-goods vehicle/truck driver. He actually began working at the beginning of 2019, with labour relations proceeding normally; the employer respected all of the employee’s rights according to the individual employment contract and the law.
Later, the plaintiff company decided on disciplinary dismissal of the employment contract, given that the employee had recorded 22 days of absence.
During the period in which the individual contract was in force, the employee was responsible for travelling from the city of Zalău, Romania, to Denmark, where he was to perform specific transport duties, a work task that fell to the employee under his job description and according to instructions from the employer and the transport coordinator.
The employee did not fulfil duties provided in the employment contract and job description: he explicitly refused to continue the journey towards Denmark, the destination country, according to the instructions from the transport coordinator, returning to Romania.
The employer’s action was based on the provisions of Article 254 of the Labour Code, which regulates the employee’s financial liability. Before the first-instance court all conditions for financial liability and the reasons why they are satisfied were presented in detail.
The plaintiff company showed that the failure to perform arises from the explicit refusal of the defendant to continue the journey to Denmark in line with instructions from the transport coordinator. The court was shown that the act was committed with fault, materialized in the subjective attitude of the employee not following instructions from his superior.
The damage was estimated by the plaintiff company as the equivalent cost of fuel and road tolls related to the transport performed by the employee, and the causal link between the employee’s non-fulfillment of obligations and the damage caused to the employer was demonstrated.
Although, before the first-instance court, all documents showing the employee’s route were submitted, the court ordered the plaintiff company to file in the case file the delegation order issued by the head of the unit by completing the travel order, the data of the person who was to perform the journey: position, the service task during the delegation, the place and duration of it.
Although the plaintiff company showed the court that the filling in of travel orders was completed by the driver upon return from each trip—at which time they should have been submitted—and that the employee failed to hand them over, the court found that the documents submitted by the plaintiff company are not sufficient to establish the employee’s route.
Moreover, the first-instance court found that although the employee was performing his job duties at the moment of contractual non-fulfillment, he was not, in fact, performing a freight transport in the legal sense applicable; thus, it found that all of the employee’s assertions regarding existence of CMR document / carriage note / travel order are unfounded.
FIRST INSTANCE COURT DECISION
The first-instance court rejected the action filed by the plaintiff company, considering that the documents submitted do not prove the transport activities that the former employee was supposed to perform in the destination country.
SUPPORT OF THE CASE BEFORE THE COURT OF APPEAL
Against the first instance decision, the plaintiff company, represented by labour law attorneys, filed an appeal, by which it sought admission of the appeal, annulment of the appealed sentence as illegal and unfounded, and, upon retrial, admission of the claim as filed.
Brisc Legal’s attorneys criticized the first instance sentence, demonstrating to the Court of Appeal that all conditions regarding the financial liability of the former employee are met, insisting on the aspect that since the employee was in performance of his duties, at the moment of contractual non-fulfillment he was not in fact performing a freight transport in the legal sense under applicable law, which is why all assertions by the first instance court and the employee himself regarding existence of a CMR / carriage note / travel order are unfounded and not applicable to the facts.
The Cluj Court of Appeal took over arguments developed by the labour law attorneys and found the employee’s conduct of refusing to continue the travel toward Denmark, even in the context of misunderstandings between the parties, to be illegal.
The court, in agreement with attorneys, held that as long as the employee held the status of employee of the plaintiff company—which had not ceased despite those misunderstandings—the employee had the obligation to continue fulfilling tasks assigned to him by the employer, including the obligation to comply with employer’s instructions to continue the trip to the destination in Denmark.
The existence of the employee’s dissatisfaction did not entitle him to refuse to perform service duties as long as the employment relationship between the parties had not ended. Thus, all criticism by the former employee related to assessment of the damage, the probative value of documents submitted by the employer, and to justification of refusal to fulfill duties on ground of prior disagreements with employer, were dismissed.
DECISION OF THE COURT OF APPEAL
In agreement with the arguments developed by Brisc Legal’s team specialized in labour law, the Court of Appeal admitted the appeal filed and reversed entirely the first instance judgment by way of admitting the employer’s claim. In this sense, the court obliged the former employee to pay to the employer the damage consisting of the equivalent cost of fuel and road tolls related to the transport performed by the former employee.
ENFORCED EXECUTION AGAINST THE EMPLOYEE
Brisc Legal’s team, labour law attorneys in Cluj specializing in enforced execution, provided legal assistance to the employer in the enforced execution stage. Thus, considering that the former employee did not comply with the Court of Appeal decision, further steps for enforced execution of the amount owed by the former employee to the company were carried out, and the employer fully recovered the damage.