On 20 October, the Norwegian Supreme Court issued its ruling (HR-2025-2052-U) in an employment dispute concerning dismissal, addressing the question of whether the employee, as plaintiff, could extend the claim to include wrongful dismissal in addition to compensation after the eight-week deadline. We have looked at the ruling and here's a short summary.
According to the Working Environment Act, the deadline for bringing a legal action for unfair dismissal is eight weeks after the dismissal took place or the end of the negotiations. For compensation for unfair dismissal, the deadline for bringing legal action is six months.
However, according to the rules of the Dispute Act, it is possible to change the claim and the basis for the claim during the preparation of the case.
The case concerned an environmental therapist who worked for a municipality from 2009 and was dismissed on 14 February 2024 after long-term problems with working hours, absence, and availability. She sued the municipality on 14 August 2024 claiming damages, but extended her claim on 3 January 2025, prior to the trial, to include a claim to establish that the dismissal was unfair.
Earlier in the case, the Court of Appeal had interpreted the rules so that the procedural rules of the Dispute Act made it possible to extend the basis for the claim to include unfair dismissal. This was the case even though the extension of the basis for the claim had been submitted after the eight-week deadline.
The Supreme Court's Appeals Committee found it clear that the eight-week deadline in section 17-4, first paragraph of the Working Environment Act also applies to the extension of a claim to include claims of unfair dismissal. The Supreme Court also pointed out that it would be far too easy to avoid the eight-week deadline if one could start with a claim for compensation within six months and then extend the case to include claims with a shorter deadline.
The ruling establishes that the eight-week time limit for actions for unfair dismissal is absolute, and that the rules on extending the basis for claims in legal proceedings will in such cases be covered by the litigation rules in the Working Environment Act, not the Disputes Act.
Questions regarding this, feel free to reach out.