This case is an appeal brought by the Complainant to the Labour Court against the compensation awarded by an Adjudication Officer in the Workplace Relations Commission who awarded the Complainant 4 week’s pay in compensation for Unfair Dismissal.  The Complainant maintained that the quantum was an insufficient recognition of the losses incurred.   The Complainant was employed as a Chef by the Respondent from February 2018 to August 2019.  The Complainant was on certified sick leave from April 2019. The Respondent issued the Complainant with his P45 and payment for holiday pay on the 7th of August 2019. A small ‘ex gratia’ payment was included. The covering letter referred to the termination ‘as agreed’.

The Respondent argued that there was no dismissal and that the Complainant actually resigned. At a meeting which took place on the 1st of August 2019, the Complainant said that he would be unavailable for work in the near or long term. The Respondent advised of the difficulties that this caused. The Complainant replied that the Respondent should do what was best for the business but he asked the Respondent to wait until after the bank holiday as this would be an extra day for him. The Respondent took this to mean that the Complainant no longer required his job to be held open and, after the bank holiday on the 6th of August 2019, the Complainant was sent his holiday and bank holiday pay plus an ex-gratia payment gesture of goodwill of €200.

The Complainant gave evidence of his attempts to find work following his dismissal. It was put to him by the Court that the evidence suggested that he had applied for approximately one job per month between November 2019 and March 2020 and this was accepted by the witness who said that he had been somewhat choosy. He noted that work in a deli or a nursing home could affect his standing as a Chef for restaurant work. The Complainant gave evidence of three short training courses that he had undertaken.

The Court concluded that the letter sent on the 7th of August was a letter of dismissal. There was no process in which the Complainant’s rights under natural justice could have been exercised prior to this dismissal. This fact alone made the dismissal unfair.

As noted in the summary of his evidence above, the Complainant accepted that his job application rate in that period was, roughly, one per month. This fell short of the standard requirement that a dismissed employee should devote part of every single normal working day to finding alternative employment in order to mitigate their losses.   Taking all factors into account, the Court determined that a payment of compensation for unfair dismissal in the amount of €8,000 should be made by the Respondent to the Complainant.
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2021/april/udd2126.html