Supreme court clarifies whether ignorance of employee's disability exempts from liability

Use by an employee of the guarantees provided by law in labor relations depends not only on his own initiative or application — labor legislation requires the employer to create the necessary conditions for the realization of the employee's labor rights, including the application of established labor guarantees.

Sometimes employers try to justify the failure to provide these guarantees by claiming that the employee did not report his disability or other special status or did not provide the relevant documents. However, this approach does not correspond to the goals of labor legislation.

In the framework of the labor dispute considered by the Supreme Court, the courts established that an employee with group II disability had worked 40 hours a week for a long time. Meanwhile, according to labor legislation, the working week for such employees should not exceed 36 hours. The employer claimed that he did not know about the employee's disability, but the courts considered this argument unfounded and satisfied the claim for payment of additional wages to the employee for hours worked in excess of the norm established by law.

An employee, due to the limited nature of his legal knowledge, may not know all the labor rights and guarantees granted to him by legislation. Even possessing a certain legal status, he may not realize what legal consequences this entails in labor relations and may not know about his right to demand the corresponding guarantees from the employer.

The employer, however, is the organizationally, legally, and informationally stronger party in labor relations. Possessing the capabilities of professional management, a personnel service, and legal support, he is obliged to know and apply the requirements of labor legislation.

Taking into account that the employee acts as the weaker party in labor relations, labor legislation imposes a positive duty on the employer. Thus, the application of the guarantees provided by law requires active actions from the employer.

For this purpose, the employer, both when concluding an employment contract and in the course of labor activity, is obliged to:

- Determine the legal status of the employee;

- Collect the necessary information on this issue;

- Apply the guarantees arising from legislation.

The fact that the employee did not remind about this or did not demand guarantees separately does not relieve the employer of these obligations.

Thus, arguments in the spirit of "the employee did not inform us" or "did not provide documents" do not exempt the employer from the obligations provided for by labor legislation.

In this regard, when hiring, it is extremely important for the employer to clarify the following issues:

- The presence of a disability or other statuses in the employee that give the right to labor guarantees by law;

- The presence of documents confirming these circumstances;

- The correct application of working hours, rights to leave, and other labor guarantees in accordance with the established status.

Timely and correct application by the employer of the guarantees provided by law serves both to protect the rights of employees and ensure social justice, and to prevent possible labor disputes in the future.