Sandra Mahon V. Chief Appeals Officer

The following case was originally dealt with by a deciding officer, and then the appellant appealed to the Chief Appeals Officer, the decision of the Chief Appeals Officer was appealed in the High Court, but was later dismissed by the Supreme Court. The case was in relation to an area of employment law, which concerns itself with the contract of an employee. The question in hand was whether the demonstrator, Sandra Mahon was employed under a contract of service or rather a contract for service, therefore identifying whether she was an “insurable person”.
Sandra Mahon (“The demonstrator”) applied to work for the company (appellant) in 1988 as a demonstrator. The nature of this role was that when the shop required a showcase of a product, …show more content…
The question was referred to a deciding officer, following section 111(1) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act 1981, who stated that the demonstrator was employed under a contract of service. This decision was then appealed to an appeals officer under section 298(1) of the Act of 1981, who affirmed the decision. The appellant then applied to the Chief Appeals Officer pursuant to Section 300(4) of the Act of 1981 for a review on the decisions made by the appeals officers. The Chief Appeals Officer declined the appeal to review the decision. The appellant then brought what was held by the Chief Appeals Officer to the High Court by way of special summons pursuant to section 299 and section 300(4) of the Social Welfare (Consolidation) Act, 1981. The High Court refused to abrogate the decisions of the appeals officers, as the High Court will not get involved with the facts of the decision, but only establish whether the decisions of the appeals officers were based on a mistaken view of the law. However, the court was obliged to take into account whether there was evidence to support the decision of the appeals officers that the demonstrator was employed under a contract of service, and had the correct legal proceedings been applied by the appeals …show more content…
It was seen that the appellant had provided the demonstrator with the clothing and equipment necessary for her to carry out the demonstrations, and she made no financial contribution to the demonstrations. The money that she earned was solely dependent on her completion of the demonstrations. She had no control over the money she made, but was decided by the extent of which her services were used. She was in no position to make a higher profit from her work. Where she could not complete her work herself, she could not delegate for the work to done by other persons without the prior consent of the appellant.
Through acknowledgment of the above factors, and many other factors which alone did not conclude that she was employed under a contract for service, the Supreme Court judge was satisfied with the decision of the High Court judge, that Sandra Mahon was indeed employed under a contract of service, therefore dismissing the appeal of the appellant.
In conclusion, I personally believe that the decision to dismiss the appeal was justified. Through dissecting the factors of Sandra Mahon’s employment, it became evident that there were many factors which are not consistent with a contract for service, and these coupled other terms of her employment, presented a fairly solid case which suggesting that Mahon was in fact employed under a contract of