Manager awarded €197,000 for 'disguised' dismissal

A HIGH Court judge has ordered a company to pay an additional €197,000 to an “impressive” general manager after finding his “redundancy” was not genuine but a disguised dismissal. The ruling will result in the man receiving €298,000 and requires his employer to pay his legal costs.

In his decision, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said an employee seeking to vindicate rights may be required by “a determined employer” to proceed through four oral hearings: before a rights commissioner, the Employment Appeals Tribunal, the Circuit Court and the High Court.

In this case, Jerome Ponisi won before the tribunal, but his employer, JVC, a consumer electronics sales company, unsuccessfully appealed that decision to the Circuit Court. The firm then appealed to the High Court, with the entire process taking three years.

In a reserved judgment, the judge dismissed the firm’s appeal against the Circuit Court decision in favour of Mr Ponisi (64), Tipper Road, Naas, Co Kildare. He had challenged the decision by JVC Europe Ltd to make him redundant in autumn 2008. On the application of senior counsel Oisín Quinn, for Mr Ponisi, the judge also awarded costs of the Circuit Court and High Court against JVC.

Mr Ponisi was employed from September 1991 as general manager with JVC in Ireland, with the bulk of his work involving sales, and was due to retire in October this year. He received €101,000 on his “redundancy”. The judge ruled yesterday he was entitled to an additional €197,000.

The judge said the results of Mr Ponisi’s work from his employment in 1991 were impressive.

In March 2008, Mr Ponisi was told his position and two others would no longer be required. However, while the three posts were disappearing, three “new” posts were being created “for reasons not at all apparent”, the judge said.

One of those “new” positions – sales manager for Ireland – closely mirrored the job being done by Mr Ponisi. The court had heard evidence from Thomas Dillon that in April 2008 he was contacted by JVC about the availability of the post of “sales manager Ireland” and Mr Dillon was later appointed to that post. From the evidence, there was a strong indication the apparent plan of redundancy was a process of removing Mr Ponisi as general manager and replacing him with Mr Dillon under a different designation, the judge said.

Given diminishing employee numbers, Mr Ponisi could not have avoided redundancy all the way to his retirement at age 65 in October 2011, the judge found. However, he had lost out on about two years’ employment, during which he would have been topping up his pension entitlement.

He had made many genuine but unsuccessful efforts to find other work since, he also noted. In all the circumstances, he was entitled to damages of €197,000.