The Complainant commenced employment with Rosderra Irish Meats Group Limited (the Respondent) in October 2000.  In June 2015, Mr Baranya left his employment with the Respondent. He contacted Rosderra shortly afterwards informing them that his plans had not worked out and sought to resume employment with them. The Complainant met with the Respondent’s HR Manager and one of the supervisors, who told him that they were short of staff to do ‘back-scoring’ and that he could start the following week. The Complainant was subsequently dismissed in September 2015.

The Labour Court dismissed the claim that the Complainant had been unfairly dismissed contrary to the Unfair Dismissals Acts as he did not have one year’s continuous service. The Complainant submitted that when he returned to work, he informed his supervisor that he did not want to do back-scoring as it caused him a lot of pain. In September 2015, he repeated his concerns to his supervisor and requested to move to another role. The Complainant argued that this was a protected disclosure, and that he made the same disclosure to the Works Health and Safety Manager and also to the HR manager.

The Respondent maintained that the issue raised was a grievance as the complaint was a matter specific to him, and therefore should properly be classified as a grievance. The Labour Court held that the communication did not disclose any wrongdoing on the part of the Respondent and therefore it appeared that it was in fact an expression of grievance and not a protected disclosure.

The Complainant sought to appeal the decision of the Labour Court in the High Court, claiming that the decision was ultra vires the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. The High Court, under Ms. Justice O’Regan, was satisfied that the Labour Court did not determine that the Complainant’s communication was a grievance “rather than” a protected disclosure. Ms Justice O’Regan also explained that the Labour Court found on the evidence that the communication “was more circumspect than asserted” by the Complainant and did not reveal any form of wrongdoing on part of the Respondent. Therefore,  Ms Justice O’Regan dismissed the appeal as there was no evidence that the Labour Court had erred in their decision.
https://beta.courts.ie/view/judgments/bfd9bc63-55ef-4095-9973-9e97ea8b177c/44e2e938-8295-476c-bc93-f0a7463f7b31/2020_IEHC_56.pdf/pdf