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Old 02-18-2009, 03:06 PM
Fabio J. Guzman Fabio J. Guzman is offline
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Mr. Spenser, if the home is owned by a corporation it is very probable that the "domestic" won't be considered as such by the courts because of the profit motive implicit in the business of all corporations. In addition, the law (Art. 258 of the Labor Code) has expressly stated that "domestics" working for a condominium are not considered as such but as regular employees, rule which could be interpreted as applying also to corporations.

Based on this and on the principle applicable to labor disputes in the DR that in case of ambiguity in the law, the law has to be interpreted in favor of the employee ("in dubio pro operario"), I would conclude that a corporation cannot have a domestic as defined in the Labor Code.

As for your second question, Article 259 of the Labor Code states that the labor contracts of domestics are governed exclusively byTitle IV of the Labor Code (Articles 258 to 265). Since the maternity provisions are found in articles 231 to 243 of the Labor Code, and severance pay in articles 75 to 102, it is obvious that domestics are not protected by those provisions.
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