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FULL RECOMMENDATION
PARTIES : COMPASS GROUP DIVISION :
SUBJECT: 1. Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No’s: ADJ-00032462 CA-00043066-001. The Adjudication Officer decided that the complaint had been made outside the time limit permitted by the Act for the making of a complaint and that no reasonable cause had been shown by the Appellant for the delay in making his complaint. The Adjudication Officer decided that the time limit available for the making of his complaint should not be extended and the complaint failed for that reason. The Respondent submitted to the Court that the complaint before the Court had been made outside the time limit permitted by the Act for the making such a complaint. The Appellant alleged that an unspecified breach of the Act had occurred on 27th August 2020. His complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) in relation to that alleged breach was made on 14th March 2021. It was common case between the parties that no complaint to the WRC was made within the time limit for the making of such a complaint set out at Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 (the Act of 2015). The Court decided to hear the parties in relation to the issue of the time limit permitted for the making of a complaint as a preliminary matter and to issue a decision in relation to this matter before proceeding to hear the entire matter. Both parties confirmed their understanding of this approach and agreed that the Court should proceed in this manner. The parties understood that, in the event that the Court concluded that the time limit for the making of the within complaint set out in the Act should not be extended, that decision of the Court would determine the entire matter. Submission of the Appellant on the preliminary matter The Appellant made no written submission to the Court. He said that he had not been able to arrange the services of a legal representative to enable him to do so. In relation to the accepted fact that his complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission had been made more than six months after the date of the alleged breach of the Act, he submitted that he was not very familiar with the law and that he had been unable to access the services of a legal representative. Submission of the Respondent on the preliminary matter The Respondent submitted that no reasonable cause had been shown by the Appellant for the making of his complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission and consequently his appeal of the decision of the Adjudication Officer must fail. Discussion and conclusions The Appellant’s complaint was received by the Workplace Relations Commission on 14th March 2021. The Appellant alleges that an unspecified breach of the Act occurred on 27th August 2020. Having regard to section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act, the six-month time limit within which the initiating complaint in respect of the alleged breach of the Act should have been referred to the Director General of the Workplace Relations Commission expired on 26th February 2021. The Appellant, therefore, lodged his complaint out of time. The Court, at its hearing, set out to the parties that it would hear the parties in relation to the matter of time limits as a preliminary matter on the basis that its determination upon this matter had the potential to dispose of the entire matter. At first instance the Adjudication Officer held that the Complainant had failed to demonstrate reasonable cause for his delay in bringing the claim. Section 41(8) of the Act of 2015 provides, in effect, that the time for presenting a claim under the Act may be extended for reasonable cause shown for a period up to but not exceeding 12 months from the date of the occurrence of the event giving rise to the claim. The established test for deciding if an extension should be granted for reasonable cause shown is that formulated by this Court in Labour Court Determination DWT0338, Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll. Here the test was set out in the following terms: - “It is the Court's view that in considering if reasonable cause exists, it is for the claimant to show that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford an excuse for the delay. The explanation must be reasonable, that is to say it must make sense, be agreeable to reason and not be irrational or absurd. In the context in which the expression reasonable cause appears in the statute it suggests an objective standard, but it must be applied to the facts and circumstances known to the claimant at the material time. The claimant’s failure to present the claim within the six-month time limit must have been due to the reasonable cause relied upon. Hence there must be a causal link between the circumstances cited and the delay and the claimant should satisfy the Court, as a matter of probability, that had those circumstances not been present he would have initiated the claim in time.” In the decision of the High Court in Donal O’Donnell and Catherine O’Donnell v Dun Laoghaire Corporation [1991] ILRM 30 Costello J. stated as follows: “What the plaintiff has to show (and I think the onus under O. 84 r. 21 is on the plaintiff) is that there are reasons which both explain the delay and afford a justifiable excuse for the delay.” It is clear therefore that the onus rests upon the appellant to identify the reason for the delay in making his complaint and to establish that the reason relied upon amounts to reasonable cause for that delay. In this case no written submission was made to the Court by the Appellant notwithstanding the obligation placed upon him to do so by the rules of the Court. Similarly, no application for an extension of time was made by the Appellant to the Court. The Appellant set out only that he had been unable to access legal advice at the material time and that he was not very familiar with the law. The Court finds that the brief oral submission of the Appellant amounts to a contention that he was, at the material time, ignorant of the law. In Galway & Roscommon ETB UDD1624, this Court found as follows:- “The Court is satisfied that the legal principle of ‘ignorantia juris non excusat’ (“ignorance of the law excuses not”) applies in this case and therefore the miscalculation cannot be accepted as excusing a failure to comply with a statutory time limit. While ignorance on the part of an employee of his or her statutory rights may explain a delay in submitting his or her appeal under the Act it cannot excuse a delay. In Minister for Finance v CPSU and Ors [2007] 18 ELR 36 the High Court held that ignorance of one’s legal rights, as opposed to the facts giving rise to those rights, cannot be accepted as an excuse for not observing a statutory time limit.” The Court notes that the Appellant made no application for an extension of the applicable time limits and notes also the Respondent’s submission in relation to the matter. The Court applies the principles set out in Galway & Roscommon ETB UDD1624 and finds that the Appellant has failed to demonstrate reasonable cause for the delay in making the within complaint. Decision The Appellant has failed to demonstrate reasonable cause for the delay in making the within complaint and his appeal therefore fails. The decision of the Adjudication Officer is affirmed. The Court so decides.
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