PDD231

1. Appeal Of Adjudication Officer Decision No. ADJ-00034354 CA-00044040-002

BACKGROUND:

2. The Employer appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officer to the Labour Court on 11 September 2022. A Labour Court hearing took place on 3 February 2023. The following is the Determination of the Court:-





DETERMINATION:

This matter comes before the Court as an appeal by Ruth Murphy (the Appellant) against a decision of an Adjudication Officer in her complaint made under the Protected Disclosures Act, 2014 (the Act) against her former employer, Temporary Emergency Accommodation (the Respondent). The party names on the face of this decision are exactly as stated on the face of the decision of an Adjudication Officer which is under appeal before the Court.

Approach of the Court

The Court decided to consider as a preliminary matter the issue of statutory time limits for the making of a complaint under the Act which had been raised by the Respondent in its’ written submission to the Court, and so advised the parties in advance of its hearing. Neither party objected to or raised any issue with this approach.

At the commencement of the hearing the Court again advised the parties that it would, at the hearing, hear the parties in relation to the issue of statutory time limits for the making of an appeal and that it would make a decision on that matter before embarking on a hearing related to the substantive matters at issue in the appeal. The Court clarified that if it was decided that the appeal had been made out of time, the matter would be disposed of and no further hearing would be held. The parties raised no issue with this approach.

The Appellant was unrepresented before the Court and, in those circumstances, the Court, with the co-operation of the representative of the Respondent, engaged with the Appellant to ensure that she was aware of the statutory provisions regarding time limits for the making of a complaint under the Act, the role of the Court as a statutory body and the obligation resting upon the Court to operate within its jurisdiction only. The Appellant advised the Court that she was aware of and understood the jurisdictional issue and that she regarded the hearing of the Court as a ‘step in the process’. She advised the Court that she would be appealing to the High Court when the Court’s decision was made and issued.

Background

It is common case that the employment of the Appellant was terminated on 20^th August 2015 and that the complaint giving rise to the within appeal was made to the Workplace Relations Commission on 11^th May 2021.

Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 (the Act of 2015) provides in relevant part as follows:

41 (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.
  
  

The Appellant submitted that she had been engaged in various processes related to a data access request made to the employer and that these processes had not concluded until 2022. Shen submitted that she understood the time limits applicable to her complaint under the Act.

The Respondent submitted that the Court could not, having regard to Section 41 of the Act of 2015 and the delay in submitting the within complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission, draw jurisdiction upon itself to hear and decide the within complaint.

Conclusion

There is no dispute between the parties that the last date upon which a breach of the Act could have occurred was the 20^th August 2015. In those circumstances the Court, having regard to the statutory provisions at Section 41 of the Act of 2015, concludes that it lacks the statutory capacity to extend time for the making of the within complaint such that a complaint made on 11^th May 2021 could come within time.

Decision

The complaint of the Appellant was made outside of the time period permitted by the Act of 2015 and consequently the within appeal must fail.

The decision of the Adjudication Officer is affirmed.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Kevin Foley
OC	______________________
09 February 2023	Chairman