Section 575: Hire of services (employment contract), definition

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 7084/2548 (2005)

   A shareholder of the employer company is not an employer within the definition in section 5(2) of the Labour Protection Act or in section 575, and so owes no duty to pay severance or wages in lieu of notice. It follows that such a shareholder has no legal interest in the outcome of the employee's claim and does not meet the requirements for joining as a co-defendant under Civil Procedure Code section 57(2), applied to labour cases by section 31 of the Act establishing Labour Courts. And since under Civil Procedure Code section 271 a judgment creditor may enforce only against the judgment debtor, such a shareholder is not a person against whom a decree may be issued under section 272, has no ground on which to seek a stay of execution, and cannot ask for execution to be suspended or halted: section 293 paragraph two permits that only where the judgment debtor's grounds are arguable and a stay would not be likely to damage the judgment creditor.

   An employee sued the employer company for severance pay and wages in lieu of notice under a final order of the labour inspector. The applicant, who was merely a shareholder of the defendant company, sought to be joined and then to have execution stayed. The Supreme Court held that a shareholder is not an employer within section 5(2) of the Labour Protection Act or section 575, and so owed neither sum. Not being the employer, the applicant had no legal interest in the outcome and did not satisfy Civil Procedure Code section 57(2) as applied by section 31 of the Act establishing Labour Courts. Under Civil Procedure Code section 271 a judgment creditor may enforce only against the judgment debtor; the applicant was not liable under the Central Labour Court's judgment, was not a judgment debtor against whom a decree could be issued under section 272, and therefore had no ground to seek a stay. Nor could execution be suspended or halted, since section 293 paragraph two allows that only where the judgment debtor's grounds are arguable and a stay would not be likely to damage the judgment creditor.

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Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.