UDD2634

PARTIES:

DIVISION:

SUBJECT:

Appeal of Adjudication Officer Decision No.: ADJ-00059183 (CA-00071988-002)

BACKGROUND:

The Employee appealed the Decision of the Adjudication Officerto the Labour Court on 16 February 2026 in accordance with Section 8A of the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2015.

A Labour Court hearing took place on 2 July 2026.

The following is the Decision of the Court:-

DECISION:

1. Appeal Details

This is an appeal by Ms Emmanuelle Toulliou against a Decision of an Adjudication Officer (ADJ-00059183/CA-00071988-002) made under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 to 2015 (the UD Act) in a complaint against Mount Anville Secondary School. The Adjudication Officer’s decision, dated 11 February 2026, found that he had no jurisdiction to hear the complaint where reasonable cause had not been shown for the failure to refer the complaint within the six-month period required by section 8(b) of the UD Act.

For ease, the parties are referred to in the same way as at first instance, so Ms Toulliou is referred to as “the Complainant” and Mount Anville Secondary School as “the Respondent”.

A hearing of the Court was held on 2 July 2026 in Dublin. The Complainant was unaccompanied at the hearing. The Respondent was represented by Mr Kevin Roche BL, instructed by Mason Hayes & Curran LLP. The Court received written submissions from both parties in advance of the hearing and heard oral submissions from both parties at the hearing. The Complainant gave evidence under oath and was cross-examined by the Respondent’s representative.

A preliminary issue arose in respect of time limits and the jurisdictional issues arising therefrom. The Complainant’s employment terminated on 31 August 2024 and she initiated her complaint to the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) on 29 May 2025. Rule 54 of the Labour Court Rules 2024 provides that: -

“The Court may, in its discretion, give a preliminary ruling on any aspect of the case where it is satisfied that time and expense may be saved by the giving of such a ruling and/or where it has the potential to be determinative of the case”.

The Court decided, with the agreement of the parties, that it would consider the preliminary matter in relation to time limits in the first instance. It advised the parties that if it determined that there was reasonable cause that prevented the Complainant from initiating her claim for redress under the UD Act, within the statutory time limits, a further hearing would be scheduled to consider the substantive appeal. If the Court determined that the claim was lodged outside the time limits set down in the Act without reasonable cause being shown, a decision would issue to that effect.

2. Summary of the Complainant’s Submission and Evidence on the Time Limit Point

The Complainant’s position was that there were reasonable grounds preventing her from initiating her claim within the statutory time limits such that her claim should be investigated notwithstanding its initiation nine months after the date her employment terminated. The Complainant said that the grounds included her father becoming terminally ill and his later death which left her suffering profound grief. She said in evidence that his decline derailed her life, and in written submissions described “exceptional bereavement following the terminal illness and passing” of her father. The Complainant confirmed that she spent time with her father in France in December 2024 and January 2025, returning to Ireland at the end of January. She said that she had hoped, after the termination of her employment, to gain additional work from the Respondent and to continue to be employed, but that she lost hope in that regard at the end of September 2024 when she heard that another teacher had been appointed. At that time, she was privately tutoring students from the school. The Complainant said that she still hoped to work on the mid-February orals in the school but knew before the end of January 2025, from students in the school, that this would not be happening. She confirmed that on her return to Ireland from France she continued working in a private capacity as a tutor for students who attended the school preparing those students for the mock exams. Her evidence was that she did not consider it a big issue to initiate her claim within six months as she thought the time limit was one year. She said she did not understand the significance of the six-month time limit.

In response to cross examination the Complainant was directed to an email communication from her to the school principal on 30 August 2024, the content of which she accepted indicated that she knew from that date that there were no hours available for her. The Complainant confirmed that in January 2025 she had enquired of the Respondent about the availability of work carrying out mock orals and that she was in active contact with the school principal about ongoing employment. She confirmed that she had looked for a reference from the Respondent in or around 10 February 2025. The Complainant said that sending single emails did not equate with the mental capacity required to lodge a complaint with the WRC, stating that she had previous experience with the WRC. The Complainant confirmed that she was in receipt of jobseeker’s allowance after the termination of her employment.

3. Summary of the Respondent’s Submission on the Time Limit Point

The Respondent’s position was that the original complaint was not submitted to the WRC within the six-month time limit set by the UD Act and therefore the WRC (and the Court on appeal) does not have jurisdiction to hear the case. The Respondent asked for the matter to be dealt with as a preliminary issue in respect of time limits.

4. Relevant Law

Section 8(2) of the UD Act provides that:

“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 [the Workplace Relations Act, 2015] to the Director General-

(a) within the period of 6 months beginning on the 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, …”

5. Deliberations

There was no dispute between the parties that the Complainant’s employment was terminated on 31 August 2024. The time limit under section 8(2) of the UD Act for initiating notice to the WRC of the claim for redress was therefore 28 February 2025. Neither was it disputed that the Complainant initiated her claim for redress under the UD Act, to the WRC, on 29 May 2025, some nine months after the termination of her employment and some three months outside the six-month time limit set out in section 8(2) of the UD Act. The Labour Court on appeal will only have jurisdiction to investigate the claim if the Court is satisfied that the Complainant had reasonable cause that prevented her from giving notice of the claim within the six-month time limit.

The established test for deciding if an extension of time should be granted for reasonable cause is that formulated by the Labour Court in Cementation Stanska (formerly Kvaerner Cementation) v Carroll DWT0338. 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 reasonable cause appears in the statute it suggests an objective standard, but it must be applied to the facts and the 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 Court is not satisfied that there was reasonable cause which prevented the Complainant from giving notice of her claim within the time limit set out in section 8(2)(a) of the UD Act. The Court considers, from the Complainant’s evidence, that the Complainant decided not to initiate her claim in the months following her dismissal because she hoped to obtain new employment with the Respondent. That was a choice she made not something that prevented her from initiating the claim. The Court notes that the Complainant had known, from the end of September 2024, that further hours of work from the Respondent would not be forthcoming so there was no basis for the delay after that time and no reason given why it could not have been submitted at that time.

Insofar as the Complainant contends that her grief, following her father’s terminal diagnosis, was such that it derailed her life there was no evidence before the Court of any incapacity in that respect. In Dr Frank Whelton t/a Whelton Dental v Elaine Corkery TUD247, which considered a failure to present a complaint in time due to “reasonable cause”, the Labour Court held that illness without evidence to show that it rendered the complainant incapable of submitting her complaint form cannot excuse the lodging of complaints outside of the statutory time limits that apply.

Despite the lack of such evidence, if the Court were to consider that the Complainant may not have had the capacity to initiate her claim during the time she was in France with her father in December 2024 and January 2025, at a time when he had been diagnosed as being terminally ill, the Court notes that the Complainant was back in Ireland from 23 January 2025 (at the latest) and actively seeking work as an examiner while undertaking tutoring work in a private capacity for at least two students of the Respondent. By the time the Complainant returned to Ireland she was aware that she was not going to be obtaining new work with the Respondent and there was nothing preventing her from initiating her claim at that stage. She was declaring herself as available to work by claiming an entitlement to job seeker’s allowance, was working and was otherwise managing her affairs. While the Court can be sympathetic to the Complainant’s loss when her father died, his date of death (15 March 2025) was after the expiry of the six-month time limit so could not in itself have prevented the Complainant from initiating her complaint.

The Court was struck by the Complainant’s evidence that she thought she had 12 months in which to initiate her claim and not six months. That provides an explanation for the Complainant’s failure to initiate her claim which has greater credibility that the other explanations relied upon by her. However, that explanation indicates nothing more than a mistaken understanding of the law. This Court has consistently held that ignorance of one’s legal rights cannot be accepted as an excuse for not observing the statutory time limit.

A failure on the part of the Complainant to present her complaint on time deprives the WRC, and this Court on appeal, of jurisdiction to investigate the complaint.

6. Decision

The Complainant’s employment terminated on 31 August 2024. The time limit under section 8(2) of the UD Act for initiating notice to the WRC of the claim for redress was therefore 28 February 2025. It was not disputed that the Complainant’s claim was initiated on 29 May 2025, some three months outside the six-month time limit set out in section 8(2) of the UD Act.

The Court is not satisfied that there was reasonable cause which prevented the Complainant from giving notice of her claim within the time limit set out in section 8(2)(a) of the UD Act. In circumstances where the claim for redress under the UD Act was not initiated within the six month time limit, and the Complainant has not demonstrated, to the satisfaction of the Court, that there were reasonable grounds which prevented her from initiating the claim to the WRC within that timeframe, the Court concludes that the Adjudication Officer, and this Court on appeal, does not have jurisdiction to investigate the Complainant’s claim for redress under the UD Act.

The decision of the Adjudication Officer, dated 11 February 2026, bearing Adjudication Reference No. ADJ-00059183 and Complaint Reference No. ADJ-00071988-002, is therefore affirmed.

The Court so decides.

	Signed on behalf of the Labour Court
	Niamh McGowan
CC	______________________
17/09/2026	Deputy Chairman

NOTE

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