This is an appeal by Ervia (the Respondent) against the decision of an Adjudication Officer under the Payment of Wages Act which found in favour of the Complainant and awarded the sum of €5,000.00. The Respondent contended that the Adjudication Officer erred in finding that there were reasonable grounds to extend the time limit and also in finding on the substantive claim under the Act.

The Complainant brought a complaint against the Respondent over a performance related award. The Complainant received a letter informing him of his Performance Related Award which was to be paid at the end of the month. In May 2018, the Respondent provided him with a breakdown of the Performance Related Award calculations, but without details of the Business Unit Multiplier. He received a payment on the 29th of March 2018 and a second payment on the 31st of May 2018. However, as he felt that both payments fell short of the amounts that he claimed were due, he raised a formal grievance with the Respondent and subsequently referred a complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission.

The Complainant stated that he had put the Respondent on notice from June/July 2018 that he was considering taking a claim under the Act, however, he argued that the Respondent should have alerted him to the statutory provision concerning time limits.

The Court was of the view that the Complainant could not circumvent the time limit set out in the Act by seeking to rely on an internal procedure that did not prevent him from bringing his complaint within the statutory time limit. Furthermore, the Court did not accept that there was any obligation on the Respondent to advise the Applicant of the statutory time limit.

Accordingly, the Court concluded that the Complainant neither explained the delay in initiating his claim nor did he put forward a justifiable basis upon which an extension of time could be granted in this case. Therefore, the Complainant's application for an extension of time was disallowed and the Respondent’s appeal succeeded.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2020/june/pwd2020.html