Employer's salary deduction was illegal
Supreme Court judgment 17 December 2021, HR-2021-2532-A, (case no. 21-070242SIV-HRET), civil case, appeal against judgment.
Eltel Networks AS (Counsel Joakim Augeli Karlsen) v. A (Counsel Jan Arild Vikan)
Justices: Indreberg, Kallerud, Bergsjø, Falch, Høgetveit Berg
An employment agreement contained a clause under which the employer could correct later salary payments if errors were made in the salary process. Referring to this clause, the employer deducted an amount that the employee had received by mistake in daily allowance. The Supreme Court's majority of four justice found, like the Court of Appeal, that section 14-15 subsection 2 (c) of the Working Environment Act prohibited an employer from making deductions to an employee's salary to cover excessively paid daily allowance. The provision must be interpreted to mean that the agreement on which the salary deduction is based must specify the relevant deduction to such an extent that it ensures predictability for the employee with regard to his/her salary payments. This condition was not met. In an obiter dictum, the majority concluded that the contractual clause did not regulate the employer's repayment requirement. There was also no basis for allowing the repayment requirement under the non-statutory rule on correction or condictio indebiti. One judge dissented with regard to the interpretation of the statutory provision and the contractual clause. The appeal against the Court of Appeal's judgment was dismissed. Dissent 4-1.