How a Company Should Respond to a Labor Tribunal Petition: Preparing the Written Answer and the First Hearing

Hello, I'm Noriaki Asato, Representative Attorney at LegalAgent.

When a company receives a labor tribunal petition and a summons to a hearing from the court, the first things it should check are the relief sought by the employee who filed the petition and the deadline the court has set for submitting the written answer. You must avoid at all costs a situation in which, while you are busy confirming facts internally and coordinating with the relevant departments, the deadline creeps up and you go into the first hearing without having submitted the supporting evidence for your rebuttal.

The labor tribunal is a speedy dispute resolution procedure that examines individual labor disputes, such as the validity of a dismissal or unpaid overtime, in no more than three hearings as a rule. The core of the company's defense lies in identifying the facts in dispute ahead of the first hearing and assembling, without omission, the objective evidence that supports its position. Here, assuming a case in which a private company is the respondent, I explain how to manage the preparation schedule, the practical work of drafting the written answer, and the criteria for deciding how to respond to a proposed settlement or a tribunal decision.

Building Arguments and Evidence with the First Hearing in Mind

Article 15(2) of the Labor Tribunal Act (Japanese) provides that, unless there are special circumstances, the proceedings must be concluded within three hearings. The case is handled by a labor tribunal committee consisting of one labor tribunal judge, who is a judge, and two labor tribunal members who have specialized knowledge and experience regarding labor relations. Although the labor tribunal members each bring practical experience from the labor or management side, they take part in deliberations and decisions from a neutral and fair position, independent of either party.

What makes this short, intensive procedure work is thorough preparation of arguments and evidence before the first hearing. Article 15 of the Rules of Labor Tribunal Procedure (Japanese) requires the summons for the first hearing to state that the parties should complete, before the hearing, their arguments, offers of evidence, and the preparations necessary for the examination of evidence. Under Article 21(1) of the same Rules, the issues and evidence are organized immediately from the first hearing, and as much examination of evidence as possible is carried out. If you go in with the attitude of "The first hearing is just an introduction; we'll work out our rebuttal after seeing how the other side behaves," you will lose the opportunity to have the company's position reflected at the very stage when the committee is forming its view of the case.

Submission of arguments and documentary evidence must be completed by the end of the second hearing, except where there are unavoidable reasons (Article 27 of the same Rules). Do not count on exceptional late submission being allowed; prepare on the assumption that everything will be submitted by the second hearing. An approach of first submitting only a document that simply denies the petitioner's claims, while postponing the search for supporting materials, carries the risk of narrowing your own opportunities to submit evidence and explain your position.

The 40-Day Rule Counted from the Filing Date and Managing the Submission Deadline

Article 13 of the Rules of Labor Tribunal Procedure provides that, unless there are special reasons, the first hearing is to be set on a date within 40 days from the date of filing. Note that this 40-day period does not mean a grace period starting from the date the documents are served on the company. Because it includes the days required within the court for accepting the petition and for serving it on the respondent, the preparation time actually left to the company when it receives the documents is shorter than that.

In addition, the labor tribunal judge individually sets the deadline for the written answer on a date earlier than the first hearing. Article 14 of the same Rules provides that consideration should also be given to the time the petitioner needs to prepare for the hearing in light of the content of the written answer. The company must accurately identify the two dates stated in the guidance enclosed with the summons, the "first hearing" and the "deadline for the written answer," and work toward the earlier submission date.

If you wish to change the hearing date or deadline because of unavoidable circumstances, you need to negotiate with the court immediately, making a prima facie showing of specific reasons. There is no guarantee, however, that a change will be granted simply because it is requested. The Tokyo District Court's notice for respondents (Japanese) also states clearly that, as a rule, changes to hearing dates are not allowed. Anticipating the time needed to retain an attorney and to coordinate the schedules of internal stakeholders, it is important to start preparing, such as arranging a legal consultation, on the very day the documents arrive.

The same notice warns that if the respondent neither submits a written answer nor appears at the hearing, a decision may be rendered based solely on the petitioner's claims. Non-appearance does not automatically result in a total loss, but there is a risk that the company's facts and rebuttal will not be sufficiently reflected in the proceedings.

Precision in Admissions, Denials and Proof in the Written Answer

Article 16 of the Rules of Labor Tribunal Procedure sets out the basic matters to be stated in the written answer. In addition to the answer to the relief sought, admissions or denials of the facts stated in the petition, and the respondent's specific arguments, these include the important facts and evidence for each anticipated issue, as well as the history of negotiations leading up to the dispute.

When drafting the written answer, separate the admission or denial of objective facts from the evaluation and legal interpretation of those facts. For example, you admit "the fact that a meeting was held with the employee," while clearly disputing the other side's subjective evaluation or evaluative wording that you "forced them to resign." If you carelessly issue a blanket denial of the petition's statements, the tribunal committee cannot tell whether you are disputing whether the event occurred, what was actually said, or what was meant by what was said. For facts not yet confirmed, careful drafting is required that continues the internal investigation while not mixing them up with facts that have been objectively confirmed.

When setting out the company's own arguments, show which evidence supports which argument. A single piece of evidence may support multiple facts. Merely submitting the employment contract and the work rules does not necessarily prove how the provisions apply in the case at hand or the specific course of conduct. Organize the materials so that the judge can immediately grasp when and by whom each record was created and which facts it directly supports.

Some evidence contains aspects that are favorable and unfavorable to the company at the same time. If you submit only part of an email, cutting it out and concealing the surrounding context, the distortion of context may be exposed when the petitioner submits evidence, which could damage the credibility of the company's entire account. The persuasiveness of a rebuttal is not determined by the force of its tone. What shapes the committee's view at the hearing is an attitude of honestly presenting what can be explained on the basis of objective records, and offering an assessment even of the parts where the evidence is thin.

The Legal Effect of Settlements, Decisions and Objections, and Practical Judgment

In labor tribunal proceedings, the committee first tries to reach a mediated settlement, aiming for resolution by agreement. If the parties reach an agreement and its content is entered in the record, the entry has the same effect as a judicial settlement. This is a legal effect based on Article 16 of the Civil Conciliation Act, applied mutatis mutandis under Article 29(2) of the Labor Tribunal Act. Once the settlement record has been prepared, the agreement cannot be withdrawn and wiped clean by the same means as an objection to a labor tribunal decision.

If no settlement is reached between the parties, the labor tribunal committee renders a labor tribunal decision, a final determination, based on the rights and obligations recognized in the proceedings and the course of the proceedings. Article 20(2) of the same Act provides that the decision is not limited to confirming rights and obligations or ordering property-related performance such as payment of money, and may set out flexible terms that the committee considers appropriate for resolving the individual case. Rather than predicting the outcome solely from the amount claimed by the petitioner, you need to carefully assess the balance between the facts that emerged during the hearings and the terms of resolution.

A party who cannot accept the labor tribunal decision may file an objection within an unextendable period of two weeks from the date it was served with the written decision or was notified of the decision orally (Article 21(1) of the same Act). If the decision is announced orally at a hearing, it is a serious mistake to think that the period starts when the written decision is later served on the company. You need a system that immediately confirms the form and date of the notification and strictly manages the starting date and the expiry date of the period.

If a lawful objection is filed, the decision loses its effect and the claim in the petition moves to ordinary civil litigation. This is due to a statutory mechanism under which an ordinary lawsuit is deemed to have been filed at the time the labor tribunal petition was filed (Articles 21(3) and 22(1) of the same Act). However, do not overestimate the documents and evidence submitted in the labor tribunal as completing your litigation preparation; after the transition, you will need to reorganize your arguments and evidence in line with the court's direction of the litigation.

If no lawful objection is filed within the period, the labor tribunal decision becomes final and conclusively has the same effect as a judicial settlement (Article 21(4) of the same Act). A final decision ordering payment of money becomes a title of obligation that serves as the basis for compulsory execution, so you need to understand the overall picture of the procedure in advance. An overview of the overall flow and the system is also published in the court's guide to labor tribunal proceedings (Japanese).

Preserving Evidence and Establishing Decision-Making Within the Company

Prompt Sharing of the Documents Received and Preservation of Electronic Records

The legal or HR staff member who receives the documents served by the court should immediately share the full set, including the envelope in which they were served, with the officer or manager in charge, and enter the deadline for the written answer and the first hearing date in the schedules of the people responsible. Check not only the petition itself but also the attached evidence descriptions and documentary evidence for missing pages. If only a summary report to management goes ahead while scrutiny of the original documents stalls, it will hinder the attorney's initial consideration of the legal procedure.

The factual investigation starts by rearranging the course of events stated in the petition in chronological order and identifying the departments and personnel involved. For records that are easily deleted automatically when their retention period expires, such as emails, chat tool logs and time clock data, immediately stop any internal deletion processes and secure backups in an unaltered state. When collecting relevant materials, put in place a management system that limits who can view them, so that personal information of employees unrelated to the issues in dispute is not carelessly spread within the company.

Cross-Checking Records Directly Related to the Issues and Conducting Interviews

In a case disputing the validity of an ordinary dismissal or a disciplinary dismissal, start from the notice of reasons for dismissal and the relevant provisions of the work rules, and cross-check the work guidance records, meeting notes and improvement requests from the time. Merely listing abstract evaluations such as "the employee's ability to perform their work was severely lacking" cannot prove what problems arose in which tasks and how the employee was warned and instructed. Interview the supervisor who directly provided the guidance about the specific facts they personally experienced, and record these separately from hearsay.

In a claim for unpaid overtime, after confirming the claim period and the basis of calculation, cross-check objective time clock records, the wage ledger, logon histories of work PCs and so on. Even where there is a history of emails sent after the clock-out time, do not mechanically exclude all of that time from working hours or, conversely, immediately treat all of the communication time as actual working time; investigate the specific work instructions and the actual work performed during those hours. By separating whether the gap between the employee's claim and the company's own calculation stems from how working hours were calculated or from the evaluation of the base wage rate or the validity of a fixed overtime allowance, it becomes easier to build the core of the rebuttal and a realistic settlement proposal.

The chronology prepared in this process is a working document for reconstructing the facts by referring directly to the records of the time. You must strictly refrain from fabricating records after the fact with past dates or unnaturally standardizing the wording of the statements of those involved. Leave discrepancies in recollection as they are in the record, and calmly examine how far the facts can be supported by objective evidence.

Selecting Attendees for the Hearing and Approving Settlement Criteria in Advance

At the first hearing, it is expected that the labor tribunal judge will ask questions directly of company personnel who know the situation on the ground, in addition to hearing the legal explanation from the company's attorney. Prepare for the court hearing by appropriately selecting a staff member who can explain the facts at issue based on direct experience and a person with authority to decide on settlement in the proceedings. To prevent the staff member from answering by speculation about matters they were not involved in, clearly sort out in advance what they directly saw and heard and what they later confirmed from documents.

Approving settlement terms is not a matter settled simply by the size of the payment. You need to consider whether the employment relationship will continue or be terminated by agreement, what termination date to set, the payment date, the scope of the clean-up clause, and so on. If you only begin internal approval after the tribunal committee presents a settlement proposal at the hearing, it will be difficult to reach agreement within the limited hearing time. Share in advance with the person with approval authority the outlook and the state of the evidence for each issue, and decide beforehand which terms are acceptable and the internal route for making contact immediately if the terms change.

Even if an unwelcome labor tribunal decision is rendered and you consider filing an objection, you need to separate emotional satisfaction from the prospects of winning in litigation. Within the two-week statutory period, the company must decide internally what evidence and legal arguments it can present on the issues in ordinary litigation, and whether it is reasonable to fight even after taking into account the attorney's fees and the burden on the relevant departments that come with moving to litigation. It is essential to carry out the defense at the hearings and the assessment of a reasonable landing point for ending the dispute in an integrated way under a unified system of responsibility.