Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Giorgi  Bazierashvili

Kaizen Workforce Solutions

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 77 of the Employment Equality Act, 1998

CA-00071674-001

19/05/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Sick Leave Act 2022

CA-00071674-002

19/05/2025

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Sick Leave Act 2022

CA-00071674-003

19/05/2025

The Complainant was engaged by the Respondent, an employment agency, on one of their client sites from 22 September 2024 until 23 October 2024. He stated that he was discriminated against in the workplace and was penalised in the form of being dismissed when he returned to the client site, following an injury he sustained in the workplace. He also stated that he did not receive his statutory sick pay entitlements.

CA-00071674-001:

The Complainant stated that he was recruited by the Respondent which assigned him to work for one of its clients. At the workplace, he was given an unreasonably heavy workload and was required to lift and carry heavy boxes manually, while other employees were provided with appropriate equipment to perform the same tasks. He was the only Georgian employee, and as a result of the manual handling requirements, he sustained an injury. He further stated that whenever he raised complaints about his treatment, he was threatened and told that he would be dismissed if he failed to follow instructions. He reported that this treatment made him feel as though he was being treated like a slave.

CA-00071674-002:

The Complainant stated that he sustained an injury at work and subsequently attended hospital for treatment. While he was on certified sick leave, the employer requested that he return to work; however, he did not do so as he was still unfit for work at that time. Upon his recovery, he informed the Respondent of his intention to return. He stated that, on 23 October 2024, the Respondent contacted him and advised that there was no longer any work available for him.

CA-00071674-003:

The Complainant stated that he did not receive his sick pay entitlements under the Act.

The Respondent stated that they were unable to comment on the allegations made by the Complainant regarding events that occurred in the workplace, as they are an employment agency and the Complainant was assigned to work at one of their client’s sites.

Preliminary Matter- Time Limits:

The complaint form was received by the Workplace Relations Commission on 19 May 2025.

Therefore, the relevant period for consideration in assessing a contravention under the Acts, having regard to the six-month statutory time frame set down at Section 41(6) of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015, is the period from 20 November 2024 until 19 May 2025.

The Complainant in this case seeks an extension of the timeframe for lodging a complaint to encompass the period, from 22 September 2024 to 23 October 2024, when he left the Respondent’s employment. The application for extending time is made on the basis that his failure to present a complaint within time was due to reasonable cause.

The established test for deciding if an extension of time can be granted for reasonable cause is that formulated by this Court in Labour Court Determination DWT0338, Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll.  The test was set out as follows:

“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.”

The test formulated in Cementation Skanska (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll draws heavily on the decision of the High Court in Donal O’Donnell and Catherine O’Donnell v Dun Laoghaire Corporation [1991] ILRM 30. 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 was justified in delaying the institution of proceedings. 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.”

The burden of proof in establishing the existence of reasonable cause rests with the Complainant. To discharge that burden, and for an extension of time to be granted, the Complainant must both explain the delay and offer a justifiable excuse for the delay.  The Complainant must establish a causal connection between the reason for the delay and the failure to present the complaint in time. Finally, I must satisfy itself that the complaint would have been presented in time if not for the factors relied upon as reasonable cause. It is the actual delay that must be explained and justified.

In explaining his failure to present his complaints within the statutory 6-month period, the Complainant asserted in the first instance that that he speaks and understands English very poorly and had no knowledge of Irish employment law and his rights thereunder. In this regard, I note however the fundamental principle that ignorance of one’s legal rights and responsibilities does not provide a justifiable excuse for a failure to bring a claim in time or to the appropriate body, as held by the High Court in Minister for Finance v CPSU and Ors, [2007] 18 ELR 36.

The Complainant further stated that, although he initially sought the assistance of the MRCI on 27 March 2025 — within the statutory six-month timeframe set out in the legislation — the organisation did not arrange a meeting with him until 23 April 2025 and failed to submit the WRC complaint form on his behalf until 19 May 2025. It is, however, well established in case law that the failure of a representative to submit a complaint within the statutory timeframe does not constitute reasonable cause for the purposes of granting an extension of time.

Considering the foregoing points, I do not allow the Complainant’s application for an extension of time and therefore find that I do not have jurisdiction to hear these complaints because the Complainant’s employment ended on 23 October 2024 and his complaints were not referred to WRC until 19 May 2025, which is outside of the six-month time period set out in the legislation.

CA-00071674-001 - CA-00071674-003:

I do not have jurisdiction to hear these complaints for the reasons set out above.