Abu Dhabi Court of Cassation, Labour Appeal No. 7 of 2024, judgment of 13 March 2024
Where the injured party and the party responsible are linked by a prior contract, the claim for compensation cannot be based on tort, because that would override the contract's terms on liability and undermine its binding force, unless the harm results from an act that would be unlawful whether or not the parties were in contract. What the parties agree has the force of law between them, and a party cannot be held to obligations the contract does not contain. A court may depart from an expert's view on a purely technical question only for sound reasons grounded in the file.
A trainee joined a company in September 2015 under a training contract on a total monthly wage of AED 23,227, to be appointed to a specialist post once training ended. The company suspended the programme, saying that only administrative posts were available, and terminated the training in August 2022. He claimed AED 5 million for the harm caused by the breach of the training contract, the cost of completing his training elsewhere (AED 270,000), a certificate of completion, wages, gratuity, leave, notice pay and compensation. After a three-member expert committee filed a report and a supplementary report, the labour court awarded AED 39,337, and the Court of Appeal upheld the judgment.
The Court of Cassation rejected most of the worker's grounds. Because the parties were bound by contract, the compensation claim could not proceed in tort: applying tort rules would disregard the contract's own liability terms, unless the other party had committed an act unlawful in itself. The labour court had also properly confined itself to labour claims, leaving any other claims to the civil court. The contract did not oblige the company to pay for training elsewhere, and what parties agree binds them but nothing beyond it. Under Article 73(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021, which repeals any contrary provision, that law governs disputes over rights between employer and worker. Costs were properly imposed on the losing appellant under Article 133(2) of the Civil Procedure Law. The Court did, however, accept the ground on the expert evidence: the committee's supplementary report, after inspecting the original termination letter, fixed the end of service at 22 August 2022, and the Court of Appeal could not reject that technical finding without adequate reasons. The judgment was quashed in part, unpaid wages were awarded and notice pay corrected, raising the total to AED 76,211.
The judgment confirms the rule that contractual counterparties cannot recast a breach of contract as a tort claim to avoid the contract's limits or claim more. It also shows the weight given to a court-appointed expert's findings on technical or documentary questions: a trial court that departs from them needs specific, file-based reasons.
| Article 73(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 33 of 2021 (Labour Relations Law) — text of article 73 |
| Article 133(2) of Federal Decree-Law No. 42 of 2022 (Civil Procedure Law) — text of article 133 |
“أنه لا يجوز الأخذ بالمسؤولية التقصيرية في دعوى التعويض التي يرتبط فيها المضرور مع المسؤول عنه بعلاقة عقدية سابقة”Short quotation from the judgment as published by the court. The full judgment is on the court’s official service.
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