Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

An Employee

An Employer

Representatives

Caitriona McMahon Richard H Mcdonnell Solicitors LLP

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

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

CA-00066306-001

26/09/2024

The Complainant alleges that he was constructively dismissed from his employment. The Respondent argues that the complaint is statute barred.

The Complainant was under the impression that his solicitor was handling his claim and that it would be filed alongside his personal injury case. Due to the circumstances surrounding his termination, he developed severe depression, which continues to affect him to this day. He experienced significant humiliation because of Mr. X’s actions, and was unaware that the claim for constructive dismissal was a separate matter from his personal injury claim.

After his employment ended, the Complainant immediately consulted his solicitor, where they discussed both his termination and the personal injury claim. The personal injury claim had already been filed prior to his departure. He informed his solicitor that he had felt forced to leave his job due to Mr. X’s threats to make his life difficult in retaliation for the personal injury claim. The Complainant believed that both issues would be processed together as part of a single claim. However, he later discovered that the constructive dismissal claim was separate, and this realisation occurred within the six-month deadline for filing with the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

Upon learning this, he contacted the WRC, who explained the process for filing a separate claim. Despite this, he did not take further action for another five or six months, attributing the delay to his ongoing battle with depression. He was diagnosed with depression shortly after the injury, which occurred on 19 June 2023, and he is currently undergoing treatment, including medication.

Despite his challenges, the Complainant secured new employment shortly after leaving the Respondent. He remains employed to this day and has managed to continue working, taking only a few days off when his depression becomes overwhelming.

Preliminary application:

The Complainant’s employment ended on 05.10.2023. This WRC complaint was filed on the 26.09.2024. The Complainant, in is complaint form, blames his solicitor for not filing the complaint on time. Other than that, he has not shown any reasons for the delay. The delay is prejudicial against the Respondent due to the lapse of time from the events surrounding the termination to the hearing date today. In those circumstances the Adjudication Officer does not have jurisdiction to extend the time by a further six months.

Due to the personal and sensitive medical information disclosed by the Complainant during preliminary arguments, I find that it is appropriate to anonymise this decision.

The Complainant terminated his contract of employment of the 05.10.2023. he filed his claim with the WRC on the 26.09.2024, just short of one year after the termination. In all of the circumstances I am satisfied that the complaint was filed outside of the six months allowed for by the Act.

Section 41(8) of the 2015 Act empowers an adjudication officer to extend the initial six months limitation period by no more than a further six months, if he or she is satisfied that the failure to present the complaint within the initial period 'was due to reasonable cause'.

“Reasonable cause” has been considered in a number of cases. In Salesforce.com v Alli Leech   the Labour Court set out in detail the legal principles to establish whether reasonable cause has been shown for an extension of time.  The Court stated that “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 v Carroll”.  Here the test was set out in the following term;

“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 of 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 had not been present, he would have initiated the claim on time.”

In that case, and in subsequent cases in which the question arose the Court adopted an approach analogous to that taken by the superior Courts in considering whether time should have been enlarged for “good reason” in judicial review proceedings pursuant to Order 84 Rule 21 of the Rules of the Superior Courts 1986.   That approach was held to be correct by the High Court in Minister for Finance v CPSU and others.   The test formulated in Cementation Skanska v Carroll draws heavily on the decision of the High Court in Donal O’Donnell and Catherine O’Donnell v Dunlaoghaire Corporation  .  Here Costello J (as he then was) stated as follows; “The phrase “good reasons” is one of wide import which it would be futile to attempt to define precisely.    However, in considering whether or not there are good reasons for extending the time I think it is clear that the test must be an objective one and the Court should not extend the time merely because an aggrieved Plaintiff believed that he or she were justified in delaying the institution of proceedings.  What the Plaintiff has to show (and I think the onus under Order 84 Rule 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 from the authorities that the test places the onus on the Applicant on an extension of time to identify the reason for the delay and to establish that the reason relied upon provides a justifiable excuse for the actual delay.   Secondly, the onus is on the Applicant to establish a causal link between the reason proffered for the delay and his or her failure to present the complaint in time.   Thirdly, I must be satisfied, as a matter of probability, that the complaint would have been presented in time were it not for the intervention of the factors relied upon as constituting reasonable cause.  It is the actual delay that must be explained and justified. Finally, while the established test imposes a relatively low threshold of reasonableness on an Applicant, there is some limitation on the range of issues which can be taken into account.”   In particular, as was pointed out by Costello J in the passage quoted above, “a Court should not extend a statutory time limit merely because the Applicant subjectively believed that he or she was justified in delaying the institution of proceedings”. 

The Complainant states that he secured new employment very shortly after he left his position with the Respondent. He remains in that position to date. He has a good attendance record, save for a couple of days where his illness got too much for him and he had to take the day off. He also gave evidence that he called the WRC within the six months time limit to ask about filing a complaint. The process was explained to him. However, he waited another five or six months before he actually filed the complaint. He attributes that delay to his depression however, I note that he was holding down employment for the entirety of that time.

In all of the circumstance I find that the facts surrounding the delay are not sufficient to allow me to exercise my powers to extend the time pursuant to S41 (8). Therefore, I conclude that I do not have jurisdiction to hear this complaint. 

The complaint is statute barred.

Section 41(8) . Reasonable Cause. Depression. Lack of Knowledge.