UDD2627

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No's: ADJ-00053174 (CA-00065000-003)

BACKGROUND:

The Worker appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officerto the Labour Court on 1 April 2025 in accordance with Section 8A of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2015. A Labour Court hearing took place on 23 June 2026.

The following is the Decision of the Court:-

DECISION:

Background to the Appeal

This is an appeal by Ms Lyu Lu from a decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00053174 CA-0006500-003, dated 11 March 2025) under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 (‘the Act’). The Adjudication Officer decided that the complaint had been referred to the Workplace Relations Commission out of time and that there was no basis for extending time. For those reasons, the Adjudication Officer found that he had no jurisdiction to hear the substantive complaint under the Act. Notice of Appeal was received in the Court on 1 April 2025. The Court heard the appeal in Cork on 23 June 2026.

Brief Factual Background

The Complainant was employed by Kildare Chilling Company from 23 March 2020 as an experienced Meat Processor Operative. Kildare Chilling Company was acquired by Dawn Meats Ireland Unlimited Company (‘the Respondent’) in September 2024. The Complainant was dismissed from her employment on 12 January 2024 and paid four weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. She availed herself of the appeals process which became quite protracted. The Complainant awaited the conclusion of the internal appeals process before referring the within complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission on 26 July 2024.

Preliminary Issue

It is submitted on behalf of the Respondent that the Complainant’s originating complaint under the Act was submitted outside the statutory timeframe for doing so. The Complainant made an application to the Court to extend time on the basis that she had been advised by a solicitor that she should exhaust the Respondent's internal procedures before initiating any statutory complaints.

The Law

Section 8(2) of the Act provides:

“(2) A claim for redress under this Act shall be initiated by giving a notice in writing (containing such particulars (if any) as may be specified in regulations under subsection (17) of section 41 of the Act of 2015) to the Director General—

(a) within the period of 6 months beginning on the date of the relevant dismissal, or

(b) within such period not exceeding 12 months from the date of the relevant dismissal as the adjudication officer considers appropriate, in circumstances where the adjudication officer is satisfied that the giving of the notice within the period referred to in paragraph (a) was prevented due to reasonable cause,

and a copy of the notice shall be given by the Director General to the employer concerned as soon as may be after the receipt of the notice by the Director General.”

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 (Formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll. Here the test was set out in the following terms: -

“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.”

In that case, and in subsequent cases in which this question arose, the Court adopted an approach analogous to that taken by the Superior Courts in considering whether time should 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 & Ors [2007] 18 ELR 36.

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 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.”

It is clear from the authorities that the test places the onus on the applicant for 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 connection between the reason proffered for the delay and his or her failure to present the complaint in time. Thirdly, the Court must be satisfied, as a matter of probability, that the complaint would have been presented by the Complainant 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. Hence, if the factors relied upon to explain the delay ceased to operate before the complaint was presented, that may undermine a claim that those factors were the actual cause of the delay. 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.

Application of the Law

Section 8(2) of the Act permits an Adjudication Officer to allow a Complainant to extend time for bringing a complaint beyond the initial six-month time limit for doing so, where the Complainant has demonstrated reasonable cause for the delay.

The ‘date of the relevant dismissal’ in the instant case, for the purposes of s.8(2) of the Act is 12 January 2024 as the Complainant’s employment terminated on that date and she was paid and accepted four weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. (See the decision of this Court in Fyffes Tropical Ireland Ltd v Mr Louis Osman UDD2413).

It is common case that the complaint under the Act was not received by the Workplace Relations Commission until 26 July 2024, some two weeks outside the statutory time limit. The Complaint has made an application to extend time on the basis that she had been advised by her solicitor to exhaust internal company procedures before initiating any statutory complaints process.

This Court has consistently held that the subsistence of an internal process does not constitute reasonable cause to extend time to bring a complaint under the Act. The proper course of action for a would-be complainant under the Act is to refer their statutory complaint within time so as to ‘stop the clock running’. In the event that the internal process produces an outcome satisfactory to the complainant, they can then withdraw their complaint.

On the basis of the foregoing, the Court finds that the within complaint was referred out of time and the Complainant has not established reasonable cause to extend time. The decision of the Adjudication Officer is upheld and the appeal fails.

The Court do decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Alan Haugh
CC	______________________
13/07/2026	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Decision should be addressed to Ms Ceola Cronin, Court Secretary.