Complainant

Respondent

Parties

John  McDonnell

Faneside Transport

Representatives

Alan Ledwith B.L. instructed by Lyons Skelly Solicitors

Act

Complaint Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 8 of the Unfair Dismissals Act, 1977

CA-00070434-001

31/03/2025

The complainant gave his evidence on affirmation.

On Monday 17th March 2025; he contacted his employer in the afternoon to see what work was assigned for the following day. This was standard practice as his pattern of work varies, and he needed to know his assignment.

The respondent did not reply so he rang again a couple of hours later and asked him what the story was for the following day. He could hear the phone being set down on a table and his wife came then on the phone.

The complainant says that she said that due to ‘a loss of earnings  the best thing they could do was sack him’.

In cross examination a number of previous incidents were put to him where he had resigned from the company but had been permitted to resume work after a few days.

The complainant did not dispute that these had happened.

He repeated the narrative above about ringing the respondent, getting no answer and trying again When told that there would be evidence that he was belligerent and angry the witness denied this.

He did not accept that Ms. Flynn asked him whether he was resigning.

Noel Flynn gave evidence on oath.

Mr. Flynn in a Director of the company which he describes as a small company with six trucks on the road. It was contracted with one major company to provide transport services throughout the country to various sectors.

He confirmed that there was a pattern of the complainant resigning and leaving the business but then returning a short time later. He praised the complainant as a worker and said he had a long record with the company, going back to when the witness’s father ran it, so he was always happy to take him back on the basis of the good personal relationship they enjoyed.

On the day in question he had just returned with his family from the St Patrick’s Day celebrations in Dundalk when the complainant phoned.

The conversation became heated, and the complainant was very annoyed.

The witness set the phone down. His wife then resumed the conversation.

Some twenty minutes later the complainant rang to say that he had found alternative employment, and, on this occasion, the witness did not follow up as he would have done previously.

Roseanne Flynn gave evidence on oath. Ms. Flynn is the company secretary and the first witness’s wife.

She picked up the phone when the previous witness set it down. She had been able to hear the conversation between the complainant and the first witness as it had been on speaker.

She told the complainant that Mr. Flynn did not deserve to be spoken to in the manner that the complainant had.

She asked him whether he was handing in his notice again and he confirmed that he was. She was left in no doubt that he had done so and thought “John [the complainant] has gone again’.

She was a witness to the subsequent phone call in which the complainant told Mr. Flynn that he had got a new job, and she considered that she had no reason to take any further action to follow up.

She specifically denied, in response to a question from the Adjudicator, that she had ever used the phrase ‘you are sacked’ to the complainant. Indeed, if he had not gone to work with another company, she thinks he probably would have returned to work with the respondent.

This case turns on the precise words spoken between the parties in the course of the phone call on March 17th. The complainant alleges that he was told that he was sacked by Ms Flynn (the second witness) because of some unspecified costs he had incurred to the business in the past.

The witnesses for the respondent tell a different story, of an angry or agitated call from the complainant which the first witness decided not to continue and set the phone down but did not hang up.

The complainant omits any detail of this nature save to deny that he was angry. His account of the incident went straight from him making the call to the phone being set down by Mr Flynn, as if nothing had happened in between.

Mr. Flynn’s wife, the second witness, then lifted the phone and says that the complainant told her that he was resigning. She specifically denies ever using the word ‘sacking.’

The complainant’s previous pattern of resignations is not in dispute. While it is relevant, it is not, of course, determinative. He might well have had such a pattern of behaviour and still have been ‘sacked’ as he claimed.

However, the circumstances suggest otherwise. The complainant himself accepts that his call was precipitated by some degree of annoyance about the lack of notice of his assignment the following day and also complained that this was a regular occurrence. The respondent did not dispute this but said that he often only received details of where the company’s services were needed at the last minute.

It is more instructive to view his call to Mr Flynn in that context. Mr (and Ms) Flynn’s evidence that the complainant’s tone was heated and annoyed is consistent with the complainant’s evidence as to why he made the call in the first place, and is, in any event, credible.

Ms Flynn’s evidence corroborated this, and it is primarily the exchange with her on which the complainant bases his allegation that he was ‘sacked.’

While it might be prudent to take some account of both the business and personal relationship between the respondent witnesses what is persuasive is the undisputed evidence of the subsequent phone call from the complainant.

While the complainant initially tried to suggest that this had not taken place on the same day ultimately, he did not challenge the respondent’s evidence that it did.

It still might have remained possible that he had secured this new role after having been ‘sacked’ but on the balance of probability and having regard to the factual context of the afternoon’s events I do not find that this is what happened.

The position he secured was marginally better paid than that with the respondent.

Accordingly, I find that the complainant was not unfairly dismissed and that the contract of employment was ended by his own actions.

Complaint CA-00070434-001 does not succeed.

For the reasons set out above Complaint CA-00070434-001 does not succeed.

Constructive Unfair Dismissal