[Unique] For refusing to settle… Mrs. Devi was ordered to pay approximately 29 million yen in court with her former employee.

The settlement was supposed to be for 6 million yen…

On December 12, 2012, the first trial court ruled in a labor case brought by two former employees of Mrs. Devi’s company. The court ordered her to pay approximately 29 million yen, including interest, to the two former employees.

The court ruling was a “complete defeat” for Mrs. Devi. In fact, a settlement was supposed to be reached for 6 million yen. However, as a result of Mrs. Devi’s “rejection” of the mediation proposal, she was forced to pay a huge sum of 29 million yen in the end.

The lawsuit dates back to February 2009, when the new coronavirus was raging. When Mrs. Devi traveled to Indonesia, employees who were upset that she might return home infected with the new type of corona decided to work from home instead of coming to work for two weeks after her return. However, when Mrs. Devi was informed of this policy, she became furious and notified all employees that they would be fired. She actually “fired” two of them, Mr. A and Ms. B.

I was also angry at those of you who treated me, a man with a negative testimony, as if I were a germ. You are suffering from coronophobia. I will never come to your office again because I can’t work with you people who are hurting my character. （I can no longer work with you people. You can rest assured that you will not be seeing me anymore.

It must have hurt Mrs. Devi’s pride to be treated as a “germ” after returning from Indonesia. It seems that she emotionally dismissed both of them. ……

In March of 2010, about a year after the disturbance, Mr. A and Ms. B were fired. Mr. A and Mrs. B, who were dismissed, filed a labor tribunal against “Office Devi Sukarno” (hereinafter referred to as “Devi’s Office”). A labor tribunal is a court dispute resolution system for the prompt and fair resolution of disputes concerning labor relations between workers and employers. In August of the same year, a judgment (a judgment in a normal lawsuit) was rendered, finding that the two were obligated to pay a total of 6 million yen in settlement money to both of them. However, Mrs. Devi objected to the judgment, leading to a lawsuit.

For more details, please refer to the September 12, 2012 issue of Friday Digital.

[Original] “I’m not a pathogen or anything,” Mrs. Devi lost a court case with a former employee who refused to come to work.

https://friday.kodansha.co.jp/article/390133

The two sides had differing arguments…

The issue at trial was whether the dismissals of the two former employees were valid or invalid. Mrs. Devi’s side was,

“They had a telephone conference with the attorney representing the Davy firm and clearly agreed to resign.

and that they had clearly agreed to resign. On the other hand, the two parties argued,

Mrs. Devi’s side argued, “I merely stated that there is room for an agreed resignation as long as the Devi’s office recognizes that the termination is invalid and pays a certain amount of money.

The court then rejected the plaintiff, Ms. A. The court accepted the claims of the plaintiffs, Mr. A and Ms. B, and ruled that the dismissal was invalid, meaning that they continued to be employed. Ayao Masaki, a representative of Your Ace, a law firm that specializes in labor issues, said of the court’s decision: “The Davy firm has already dismissed the ‘two’ employees.

Mr. A was paid 270,000 yen per month and Ms. B was paid 300,000 yen per month. Mr. A had a monthly salary of 270,000 and Mr. B had a monthly salary of 300,000. In addition, wages are required to be paid with legal interest of 3% if they are not paid on the date set. For example, in April ’21, the company paid Mr. B 300,000 monthly wages. For example, the 270,000 yen that was due on April 30, ’21 is now nearly 300,000 yen with interest.

In other words, the two men were ordered to pay their combined monthly salaries of 570,000 yen plus interest in full, starting in April ’21. In addition, the two were also allowed to claim unpaid overtime wages, bringing the total amount Mrs. Devi had to pay to approximately 29 million yen (as of December ’24, when this ruling was issued). The total amount Mrs. Devi had to pay was approximately 29 million yen (as of December 2012, when the court ruling was issued).

Furthermore, the court documents include the following statement.

Twice “kicked” out of the settlement proposal

In order to resolve the dispute as quickly as possible, the labor tribunal made a conciliation proposal in the range of 3 to 4 million yen (editor’s note: the settlement amount for Mr. A). Both parties decided to take the conciliation proposal home for consideration. On June 30, Reiwa 2022, the second date was set, and Mr. Sukarno, the representative of the defendant, appeared for the first time. The plaintiff (Ms. A) and Petitioner B were willing to accept the conciliation proposal, but Mr. Sukarno was not satisfied with the content of the proposal. The defendant offered to pay a settlement amount of about 400,000 yen, but the plaintiff and Petitioner B did not accept the proposal because the content was unacceptable.

Therefore, just when we thought that the mediation would end in failure, the defendant’s attorney asked for another period of time to persuade Mr. Sukarno, and the defendant’s side decided to consider the matter again. On August 2, Reiwa 2022, the third date was set, but again the defendant showed no intention of accepting the conciliation proposal, so a labor trial was held on the same day, and the court offered a settlement amount of 3 million yen and an agreement of agreed retirement on the same day. In response, the defendant later filed an objection to the labor tribunal, and the case was moved to litigation.

In other words, Mrs. Devi was the cause of having to pay such a large sum of money because she “kicked out” of the settlement proposed at the labor tribunal on two occasions. If Mrs. Devi had accepted the settlement proposal at the labor tribunal, everything would have been settled for 6 million yen.

I am not a party to the case and do not have a detailed understanding of the circumstances, but it is difficult to believe that there was an agreement to resign based on the content of the communication that was certified in the lawsuit. Also, in general, Japan has generous worker protections and strong restrictions on dismissal. Furthermore, given that the lawyers for the Davy firm were trying to persuade Mrs. Davy during the labor trial, I think it is unlikely that the Davy firm would have ended up not paying any money at all.

However, since the labor tribunal system is a short-term decision-making process, the evidence is inevitably not fully judged. I think it is not wrong to choose to make a decision to have the evidence looked at and the arguments heard thoroughly in a lawsuit. In your own honorable way, you may have felt that you did not want to end up with an ambiguous conclusion after all,” said Mr. Masaki.

I don’t care if she lost!” and Mrs. Davy may have rushed into it. However, the amount of payment to the two women, which would have been only 6 million yen, ballooned to 29 million yen, an increase of 23 million yen. …… We asked Mrs. Devi’s office what she thought of the outcome of the trial, including the appeal, but they replied, “We will refrain from commenting,

We asked her how she felt about the outcome of the trial, including the appeal, but she replied, “I will refrain from commenting on it.

However, we were unable to get a sense of her feelings, saying, “I will refrain from commenting. We do not think that she will appeal and still fight the case. ……