UDD2511

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00048279 (CA-00035894-001).

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officerto the Labour Court on 6 February 2024 in accordance with Section 8A of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2015.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 27 March 2025.

The following is the Decision of the Court:

DECISION:

This is an appeal by Roslyn Twohig (the Complainant) against the Decision of an Adjudication Officer under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 to 2015 (the Acts) in respect of her claim against her employer Alliance Packaging Ltd (the Respondent). The claim was referred to the Workplace Relations Commission on the 28 April 2020 and appealed to the Labour Court on 6 February 2024. The reckonable period for the purpose of the Act is 29 October 2019 to 28 April 2020. The Complainant’s employment terminated with the Respondent in April 2019.  The Adjudication Officer held that the complaint was submitted more than 12 months after the employment ended and was out of time.

1 Preliminary Issue – Time Limit

 There are two preliminary issues 1) was the complaint lodged within twelve months of the termination of her employment and 2) was their reasonable cause for not lodging the case within six months of the termination of hr employment. The Court decided that initially it would hear the parties on the first issue as that could be determinative of the case.

2 Summary of Complainant’s submission

Mr Wade BL submitted that the complaint was lodged within the twelve-month time frame.  He opened to the Court letter dated 5 April 2019 which indicated that the Complainant was being given three weeks’ notice which he accepted would indicate an end date of 26 April 2019 and letter of 10 May 2019 which stated that the Complainant became redundant with effect from 29 April 2019.  Both of these letters were issued by the same Director of the company. It was Mr Wade BL submission that as there was ambiguity as to when the employment end the Court was obliged to apply the “contra proferentem” principle and interpret the correspondence in favour of the Complainant.

 He further submitted that the Complainant’s appeal of the decision was not held until 2 May 2019, and she was not informed of the outcome until 10 May 2019. It was arguable that her employment did not end until the appeal was heard. No case law to support that position was opened to the Court.

Following the hearing the representatives for the Complainant submitted a document which they stated was in respect of the Complainant’s social welfare application. However, what was submitted was a screen shot from the Revenue Online Service (ROS) and that indicated the employment ceased 29 April 2019. It was their submission that the appeal was lodged within the 12-month period set out in the Act and that the Court had jurisdiction to hear their application for an extension of time for the submission of the appeal.

3 Summary of Respondent’s submission

Ms Mc Nally solicitor for the Respondent submitted that the effective date of the expiry of the three weeks’ notice given by letter of 5 April 2019 was 26 April 2019. It was not disputed that that letter was issued, and she received it. At her appeal hearing on 2 May 2019 no issue in respect of date of leaving was raised and her then representative accepted that the date of termination was 26 April 2019. The Complainant in her WRC referral form indicated that the date of leaving was 26 April 2019 the Complainant’s final payslip was dated 26 April 2019. This covered the period up to 26 April 2019. It was her submission that the complaint was submitted outside of the 12-month time limit set out in the Act and therefore the Court did not have jurisdiction to hear the case.   The contents of the letter of 10 May 2019 is not disputed but this letter issued after the expiry of the notice period and although the ROS details did say employment ended 29/4 2019, again this was put into the system after the employment had ceased.

4 The Relevant Law

The Workplace Relations Act 2015 at section 6 states:

 (6) Subject to subsection (8), an adjudication officer shall not entertain a complaint referred to him or her under this section if it has been presented to the Director General after the expiration of the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the contravention to which the complaint relates.

(8) An adjudication officer may entertain a complaint or dispute to which this section applies presented or referred to the Director General after the expiration of the period referred to in subsection (6) or (7) (but not later than 6 months after such expiration), as the case may be, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint or refer the dispute within that period was due to reasonable cause.

5Discussion on Preliminary matters

The following facts were not in dispute between the parties

On 3 April 2019 the Complainant emailed the Respondent requesting that she be given a letter explaining “that you let me go today and the reason for it”

The Respondent replied on the same date confirming that they would.

On 5 April 2019 the Respondent wrote to the Complainant setting out that they were restructuring the business and that her role was redundant. The same letter informed her that she was being given three weeks’ notice with effect from that day 5 April 2019. Three weeks from 5 April 2019 was 26 April 2019.  The Complainant did not work Mondays, 26 April 2019 was a Friday and 29 April 2019 was a Monday.

The Complainant received a letter on 10 May 2019 which indicated that she received three weeks’ pay for the three weeks beginning April 8th, 2019, and that her role became redundant with effect from 29th April 2019.

The Complainant’s final payslip was for the period up to Friday 26 April 2019 and the Complainant was unable to provide evidence of payment for Monday 29 April 2019.

The Complainant in her own submission stated that she signed on for social welfare on 26 April 2019.

Post the hearing an ROS screenshot was provided which recorded the end date as 29 April 2019.

As the letters of 5 April 2019 and 10 May 2019 were not the only factors to be considered in establishing date of termination the Court did not consider the “contra proferentem” principle as being relevant to this case.

The Court taking into account the fact that the Complainant did not work Mondays, was not paid for Monday 29 April, and the fact that this was not raised as an issue at her appeal of the decision to terminate her employment, finds that on the balance of probabilities her employment ended week ending 26th April 2019.

Therefore, the Court is satisfied that the Complainant’s complaint was presented to the WRC outside of the statutory time limit.

6 Determination

For all the reasons set out above, the Court finds that the complaint under the Act is outside the statutory time limits and therefore must fail.  In these circumstances, the Court cannot proceed to hear the substantive matter.

Accordingly, the appeal fails, and the Decision of the Adjudication Officer is upheld.

The Court so Determines.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Louise O'Donnell
TH	______________________
29th April 2025	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Therese Hickey, Court Secretary.