Woman fails to secure order preventing public body from terminating employment contract

The High Court has dismissed a woman’s application seeking an order preventing her employer, a public body, from terminating her contract of employment.

The woman, who cannot be identified due to court orders, has sued the entity that employed her for less than a year seeking damages for what she claims was her wrongful dismissal and for breach of contract. As part of her action, she sought an order restraining the termination of her employment, which occurred earlier this year.

In her judgment, Ms Justice Eileen Roberts said she was not granting the injunction on grounds including that the woman had not raised strong enough arguments that were likely to succeed at the full trial of the action.

On that basis, the judge said, she would not make orders, which would remain in place until the full hearing of the dispute, restraining the employer from terminating the woman’s employment, from commenting on her work performance or requiring it to continue to pay the woman’s salary, and other benefits including her pension.

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One of the main arguments raised was whether or not the woman’s employment was terminated outside her probationary period. The woman claims she was dismissed outside that period while the defendant argued the opposite.

The decision to dismiss her was unlawful because the defendant failed to have any regard to its public sector equality duty as required under the 2014 Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission Act.

It is also part of the woman’s claim that she is a disabled person, within the meaning of the Employment Equality Act, due to a medical condition. She claims she disclosed her medical issues to the defendant who failed to make reasonable accommodations or take appropriate measures to adapt the workplace for her.

The defendant denies any wrongdoing and says the woman was dismissed on grounds of unacceptable job performance while she was on probation. It submitted that she is not entitled to any formal disciplinary procedure as a result. It further argued that the High Court was the wrong forum to hear the dispute.

The judge said nothing raised at this point of the dispute justified the court intervening at this stage of the proceedings.

While the court was not making any findings of fact in the dispute, the judge noted that the defendant stated the woman’s job performance was “not acceptable” during her probationary period and reinstatement would be “simply unworkable”.

There was also a breakdown in trust between the parties and to grant an injunction in such circumstances would be “untenable”.

Damages could be an adequate remedy for the woman should she succeed at trial, the judge added.

Ms Justice Roberts said she was satisfied to grant an order imposing reporting restrictions preventing the media from identifying the plaintiff or her employer due to a medical condition the woman has.

The identification of the woman as a person having the medical condition would cause her undue stress and the order giving her anonymity would not be prejudicial to the interests of justice. As a result of that order, the judge also anonymised the public body the woman worked for.

The case will return before the court at a later date.