Iarnród Éireann sought volunteers for redundancy. The plaintiff showed an interest and received an estimate of the package to be expected. He asked to proceed and received a “Voluntary Severance Offer”. He signed the paperwork and returned it. 

Mr Browne was informed of his termination date and set about making arrangements. He later got a call (on the day of his daughter's wedding) from a manager stating that his voluntary severance package had not, in fact, been approved and that he was obliged to return to work. He did return ( in fact, Mr Browne continued in employment until he retired in 2009 at the age of 65 in the usual way) but was not happy and the matter was referred to a Rights Commissioner who ultimately recommended in April 2007 that Iarnród Éireann should accept the offer.

Mr Justice Hogan found in favour of Mr Browne and invited the parties to make further submissions to him on the specific relief for the breach of contract:

"..it is hard to see the plaintiff’s acceptance of the “Voluntary Severance Offer” on 11th September 2006 as anything other than the acceptance of a unilateral offer made by the company which at that point became binding. This is especially so given that the earlier version of the document had expressly warned that this was simply an estimate to which the parties were not necessarily committed, while the second version of the document – which was the one which the plaintiff signed and had witnessed – contained no such stipulation. Viewed objectively, it is equally hard to avoid the view that any person familiar with this documentation at the time would have concluded that Mr. Browne had just accepted a unilateral offer which the company had made to him."
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