The Plaintiff, Mr Rory Mason, was the Managing Director of a wealth management and investment advice firm. He brought a claim to the High Court claiming that he was wrongly dismissed from his €125,000 per year employment with the Respondent.  Mr Mason claimed that his employer wrongly accused him of gross misconduct, namely that he stole €14,000 from the business. He denied any wrongdoing and claimed the “accusation of theft” was “utterly without foundation” and a “contrived attempt” to remove him from his position as chief executive “by whatever means necessary”. He also submitted that he was the subject of baseless and false allegations.

The High Court granted Mr Mason a temporary injunction, preventing the Defendant company from implementing his purported dismissal. The court also restrained the Defendant from publicising, repeating, or communicating in any form information about the misconduct alleged against Mr Mason. Counsel for Mr Mason argued that he should be entitled to an order for his costs as he was successful at the interlocutory hearing.

The court highlighted that it should focus quite closely on what exactly is disputed as between the parties, whether that dispute is truly a factual one, and the extent to which that dispute had a material bearing on the outcome of the interlocutory injunction. The Court also stated that it was relevant to bear in mind that, in this case, the threshold standard was not simply that the Plaintiff establish a fair question to be tried but, rather, that the Plaintiff establish a strong case which will probably succeed at trial.

The central focus of the Defendants’ argument at the hearing of the interlocutory injunction was ensuring that the investigation now proposed by the first Defendant and to be carried out by an independent expert, would be of such a standard that all of the Plaintiff’s entitlements to natural justice would be fully respected.  The Court also stated that it was appropriate at very least that the order for costs that was being made in the Plaintiff’s favour should be available for the purposes of set-off to the Defendants, should they succeed at trial.

The Court granted an order restraining the Defendants from taking any steps directed at the termination of the Plaintiff’s employment with the first Defendant arising out of the matters set out in the correspondence from the first Defendants’ solicitors dated 26th April 2021.

The Plaintiff, in his submissions, included a suggested timetable for the exchange of pleadings, to commence with delivery of a statement of claim by 30th July 2021. In their submissions the defendants took issue with the fact that a statement of claim had not been delivered to the hearing date in circumstances where the plaintiff had now obtained an interlocutory injunction restraining the defendants from acting.

The Defendants submitted that it was clearly unsatisfactory that the Plaintiff should have the benefit of such an injunction on a continuing basis without actively progressing the substantive trial to which the interlocutory injunction related. The defendants submitted that its statement of claim must be delivered without delay and further direction should be deferred until the scope of that pleading is known.

The court directed that unless the Plaintiff’s statement of claim were delivered by close of business on Friday the 6th August 2021, the injunction granted will lapse. The Court also urged the parties to adhere to a timetable along the lines of that set out in the Plaintiff’s submissions but would not make a formal direction in that regard, bearing in mind that the Defendants had not yet seen the Plaintiff’s statement of claim and, therefore, could not at that point have known the extent to which they might have wished to engage in the steps provided for in those directions, nor the time it might have taken them to do so.
https://www.courts.ie/view/judgments/913d937a-5f62-4d26-868b-7aa0a1d6704f/94b6086b-49e0-410a-bf89-12f06bd0bf41/2021_IEHC_539.pdf/pdf