Complainant

Respondent

Parties

Vincent  Lawless

STL Logistics

Representatives

self

Keevagh Heverin IBEC

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-00079235-001

07/01/2026

The Complainant was employed by the Respondent as a delivery driver from 18 June 2021 until his dismissal on 25 November 2025. The Respondent is a logistics company that manages all logistics on a client site at St James's Gate, Dublin 8. When an accident or incident occurs on the site the Respondent is required to report it to its client and to investigate it.

On 29 August 2025 the Complainant reported an incident at the Malthouse, Dublin 8 in which he injured his arm. An incident report was completed on the day by the Complainant and his line manager and the Complainant worked the remainder of his shift. On 1 September 2025 he texted his line manager to say that his arm was still sore, that he would not be attending work and that he would be attending his doctor. He submitted medical certificates and remained on certified sick leave.

The Respondent invited the Complainant to an investigative meeting on three occasions, on 15 September 2025, 1 October 2025 and 25 November 2025. A fourth meeting arranged for 18 November 2025 was rescheduled to 25 November 2025 at the Complainant's request. The Complainant did not attend any of these meetings. In his correspondence he sought reasonable notice, clarity on the purpose of the meetings, the specific questions to be asked, disclosure of the evidence to be relied on and, in November, a copy of the Occupational Health report in advance of the meeting. The Complainant did attend the Occupational Health assessment arranged by the Respondent on 6 November 2025.

On 19 November 2025 the Respondent wrote to the Complainant offering a final opportunity to attend a meeting on 25 November 2025. That letter stated that if he failed to attend, the Company would be forced to draw conclusions based on the information available and that this may result in the initiation of the Company's disciplinary procedure, up to and including dismissal. The Complainant did not attend the meeting on 25 November 2025. His employment was terminated with immediate effect by letter emailed to him at 1.29 pm that same day. The stated grounds were failure to comply with reasonable management instructions, failure to engage with an internal investigation and failure to cooperate with the Company's requests to meet him. No disciplinary hearing was convened at any point. The Complainant appealed. An appeal hearing took place on 17 December 2025 before the Site Manager and the dismissal was upheld by letter of 19 December 2025.

The Complainant stated that his dismissal was procedurally unfair. He stated that he did not refuse to cooperate. On each occasion he sought reasonable notice, clarity on the purpose of the meeting or the documentation he needed to participate meaningfully, and he made these requests politely and in good faith. He objected to a reported and medically certified workplace injury being described as an alleged incident. He stated that the meetings were unclear in purpose and were repeatedly relabelled, moving between the incident investigation, Occupational Health matters and return to work, and that this affected his understanding of the process and the rights attaching to it.

The Complainant stated that he engaged fully with the Occupational Health process and attended the assessment. He stated that he could not fairly be asked to attend a meeting to discuss the outcome of an Occupational Health assessment without receiving the report in advance, and that receiving it only at the meeting did not give him a meaningful opportunity to review it or seek medical advice. He stated that his requests were reasonable but were treated as non-cooperation and that he was dismissed on that basis while on certified sick leave.

The Complainant gave evidence that had a disciplinary hearing been convened he would have attended it, but he was never given that opportunity because no disciplinary hearing was ever called. He appealed the dismissal and attended the appeal hearing but stated that the issues he raised were not properly addressed.

The Respondent stated that substantial grounds existed which justified the dismissal and that the dismissal resulted wholly or mainly from the conduct of the Complainant within the meaning of Section 6(4)(b) of the Act. Following the reported incident of 29 August 2025 the Respondent was obliged to investigate and, in line with its normal practice, invited the Complainant to an investigative meeting. The purpose of the meetings was explained to him on several occasions, and he was advised of his right to be accompanied by a colleague or trade union representative.

The Respondent stated that the Complainant was given reasonable notice, reasonable explanations and multiple opportunities to attend over a four-month period, and that meetings were rescheduled to accommodate him. It stated that he repeatedly placed conditions on his attendance, including demands for the specific questions in advance and disclosure of evidence, which the Company was not required to provide for a fact-finding meeting. It stated that while he attended the Occupational Health assessment, no information was provided to indicate that he was unable for any medical or other reason to attend the Company meetings. It stated that his continued non-attendance obstructed the Company's ability to progress the outstanding issues, that he was warned of the possible consequences, and that following his failure to attend the final meeting on 25 November 2025 the matter was reviewed in consultation with his manager and his employment was terminated. He was afforded a right of appeal, the appeal was heard by an impartial manager, and the Respondent stated that the Complainant refused to engage meaningfully in the appeal despite being repeatedly encouraged to do so. The dismissal was upheld.

The Respondent relied on Looney and Co. Ltd v Looney UD 843/1984, Moore v Knox Hotel and Resort Ltd UD 27/2004 and O'Callaghan v Dunnes Stores UD 54/2012 and stated that the dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses of a reasonable employer, that trust and confidence had broken down and that fair procedures in line with S.I. 146 of 2000 were afforded. In the alternative, it stated that the Complainant's own conduct contributed wholly or substantially to his dismissal.

The fact of dismissal is not in dispute. Under Section 6(1) of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 as amended, a dismissal is presumed to be unfair unless, having regard to all the circumstances, there were substantial grounds justifying it. The onus is on the employer.

The right to fair procedures in a dismissal for misconduct is well established. In Glover v BLN [1973] IR 388 the Supreme Court confirmed that fair procedures are a constitutional guarantee, and as Mulcahy J noted in Electricity Supply Board v Sharkey [2024] IEHC 65, what fair procedures require will depend on the circumstances of the case. In McKelvey v Irish Rail [2019] IESC 79 the Supreme Court made clear that an internal disciplinary process does not have to match a court process, but it must be fair, and central to fairness is that the employee knows the case against him and has a real opportunity to answer it before a decision is made. The Code of Practice on Grievance and Disciplinary Procedures, S.I. 146 of 2000, reflects the same principles.

Applying those principles, the difficulty in this case is a simple one. The Respondent never held a disciplinary hearing. The meetings the Complainant was invited to were investigative meetings concerning the incident of 29 August 2025, and later a combined meeting to discuss the Occupational Health report, a return to work date and the conclusion of the incident investigation. None of them was a disciplinary hearing and none of them put an allegation of misconduct to the Complainant as a charge he had to answer.

The Respondent's own letter of 19 November 2025 confirms this. It warned the Complainant that if he failed to attend the meeting on 25 November 2025 this may result in the initiation of the Company's disciplinary procedure, up to and including dismissal. On the Respondent's own wording, as of 19 November 2025 the disciplinary procedure had not been initiated. The Complainant did not attend the meeting at 10.30 am on 25 November 2025. At 1.29 pm the same day the Respondent emailed him a letter terminating his employment with immediate effect. The termination letter records that the matter was reviewed in consultation with his line manager and that based on the information available the Company proceeded to invoke the disciplinary process. That review took place without the Complainant, without notice to him that a disciplinary process had commenced, without the allegations being put to him, and without any hearing at which he could respond. The first document of the disciplinary process he received was the letter dismissing him.

A warning that a disciplinary process may follow is not the process itself. Threatening to move to a disciplinary hearing and telling an employee that his conduct could lead to dismissal is not a substitute for convening the hearing and hearing him before the decision is made. There are exceptional cases where an employer may move to summary dismissal without a hearing, but they are confined to the clearest cases of gross misconduct where the facts are beyond dispute. This is not such a case. The conduct relied on was non-attendance at meetings, the reasons for that non-attendance were contested, and the Complainant had stated in writing on 18 November 2025 that he had not refused to cooperate and remained willing to engage. His evidence at the hearing, which I accept on this point, was that if a disciplinary hearing had been convened, he would have attended it. He was never given that opportunity.

I raised this deficiency with the parties at the hearing and invited them to address me on it. No justification was offered by the Respondent for proceeding directly from the non-attendance on 25 November 2025 to dismissal without initiating the disciplinary process it had threatened. Nor can the appeal cure the defect. The Complainant was dismissed with immediate effect on 25 November 2025. The right to be heard is a right to be heard before the sanction is imposed. An appeal against a dismissal that has already taken effect asks the employee to argue his way back from a decision made in his absence, and that is not the same thing as a fair hearing before the decision is made.

For these reasons I find that the dismissal was procedurally unfair and that the Respondent has not discharged the onus of showing that the dismissal was fair.

However, the Complainant contributed significantly to his own dismissal. The Respondent had a genuine and reasonable need to investigate the incident of 29 August 2025. It was required to report and investigate accidents on its client's site. The investigation was necessary and reasonable. The Complainant's injury was to his arm. It explained why he could not drive. It did not explain why he could not attend a meeting to provide information about the accident, and he provided no medical evidence that he was unable to do so. He attended the Occupational Health assessment during the same period. He was given reasonable notice, the purpose of the meetings was explained to him more than once, and on two of the invitations he was expressly advised of his right to be accompanied by a colleague or trade union representative. Instead of attending, he placed conditions on his attendance, including demands for the specific questions in advance and disclosure of evidence, which an employer is not required to provide for a fact-finding meeting, as the Respondent correctly told him on 19 September 2025. He should have attended the meetings. His failure to do so over a period of months was unreasonable and frustrated a process that was necessary and reasonable. His conduct primarily led to the situation in which he was dismissed.

Redress:

Section 7 of the Act provides for redress by way of reinstatement, re-engagement or compensation. Reinstatement and re-engagement are not appropriate in this case. The Complainant's conduct primarily led to his dismissal through his failure to engage in a process that was necessary and reasonable, and it would not be just to restore the employment relationship in those circumstances. Compensation is the appropriate redress.

The Complainant's gross weekly pay was €782.41 for a 40-hour week. He has mitigated his loss to some extent through temporary work. Section 7(2)(f) of the Act requires me to have regard to the extent to which the conduct of the employee contributed to the dismissal. It is unlikely that the Complainant will obtain a similar role on terms that match what he had. This means that continuing loss is a factor in this case. The assessment of compensation is a matter for the discretion of the Adjudication Officer, to be exercised justly and equitably having regard to all the circumstances, and I have had regard to the Complainant's loss, his mitigation through temporary work and his significant contribution to his dismissal in arriving at this award. Allowing for the Complainant's significant contribution to his dismissal, I award compensation of 26 weeks' gross pay, being €20,342.66. (This award is made gross and is subject to any statutory deductions that may lawfully apply. It is not within the jurisdiction of an Adjudication Officer to assess the tax, if any, owing on such an award. That is a matter for the employer subject to Revenue Commissioners assessment.)

I determine that the Complainant was unfairly dismissed, and the complaint is well founded. The dismissal was procedurally unfair because the Respondent dismissed the Complainant without ever convening a disciplinary hearing. The Complainant contributed significantly to his own dismissal by failing to engage with a necessary and reasonable process. Reinstatement and re-engagement are not appropriate as the Complainant's conduct primarily led to his dismissal. Allowing for his significant contribution, I award the Complainant compensation of €20,342.66, being 26 weeks' gross pay at €782.41 per week. (This award is made gross and is subject to any statutory deductions that may lawfully apply.)

Unfair dismissal, fair procedures, no disciplinary hearing, contribution, compensation