Case number and/or case name
Ryanair Ltd. v. D. - 19.735 - C. trav. Mons, 7 September 2007
Summary
The respondent was hired on 19 April 2001 and fired on 19 April 2002 at the end of his contractual trial period. The respondent sued its employer, R. Ltd. before the Labour Court of Charleroi and obtained compensation.
The appellant contests the jurisdiction of the Belgian courts and argues that only the Irish courts have jurisdiction.
The respondent requests the court to refer a question for preliminary ruling to the Court of Justice. Its questions are formulated as follows:
“1. In view of the application of Art. 19(2) Brussels I Regulation, which are the criteria that allow to determine in which Member State the employee habitually carries out his work, when this employee is a cabin crew member for a company that carries out international transport of passengers by air?
2. In which place does this employee carry out his essential obligations as against his employer when the obligations in performance of the contract are situated in part on the ground (airport) of a Contracting State and in part on board of a plane which has the nationality of a different Contracting State?”
It must be noted that Article 68(1) EC provides that Article 234 shall apply to Title IV of the EC Treaty where a question on the interpretation of acts of the institutions of the Community based on this Title is raised in a case pending before a court or tribunal of a Member State against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law. In the present case, the reference for a preliminary ruling concerns Regulation No 44/2001, which was adopted on the basis of Article 61(c) EC, which appears in Part Three, Title IV of the EC Treaty. In those circumstances, only a national court or tribunal against whose decisions there is no judicial remedy under national law may request the Court to give a preliminary ruling on the interpretation of that regulation.
Since a decision of the Labour Court of Appeal can still be appealed to the Court of Cassation, its judgments are not “decisions against which there is no judicial remedy under national law”. The request for a reference for a preliminary ruling must be dismissed.
The Court decides that the main tasks assigned to the respondent according to the contract are for the most part carried out on board of a plane (assisting the passengers and ensuring their safety, assistance during boarding and landing, the sale of duty-free items on board, cleaning the inside of the plane), while the remaining working time is divided between the countries where the flights depart or arrive. On 16 December 2001, the respondent had requested a move from the headquarters in London to the headquarters in Charleroi, where he received his flight schedules. This does not entail, however, that the habitually carried out his work in Charleroi. The fact that the airplanes flies the flag of the Republic of Ireland is not important either.
In conclusion, Art. 19(2)(b) Brussels I applies. An employer may be sued “if the employee does not or did not habitually carry out his work in any one country, in the courts for the place where the business which engaged the employee is or was situated.” The employee was hired by the employer’s Irish subsidiary. Therefore, the employer could be sued only in the Irish courts.