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Latest in Employment Law>Case Law>Trinity College v Moss [2012]
Trinity College v Moss [2012]
Published on: 09/05/2012
Issues Covered: Dismissal Redundancy Contracts of Employment
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Background

This case concerned an appeal to the Labour Court from a decision of a Rights Commissioner that the complainant’s complaint failed because she was no longer a fixed-term employee within the meaning of the Act. It was agreed that she had worked for the respondent university from October 1996 to September 2006, under a series of successive fixed-term contracts. Accordingly, she was appointed to a contract of indefinite duration, as a lecturer in the History of Art, effective from October 1st, 2006. This contract however provided that ‘this employment is supported by income which accrues to the Irish Art Research Centre from external sources’ and that ‘the Lecturer’s appointment will be terminable by three months notice from either side’ to take effect on either March 31st, June 30th or December 31st. On 21st March, 2011, the complainant was informed that her employment would end on June 30th, 2011 due to the lack of funding for her position and her employment duly ended on that date. 

In support of the appeal, it was submitted on behalf of the complainant that the contract of indefinite duration that she had been offered was invalid and inconsistent with the Act and that the issuing of a redundancy notice amounted to a unilateral repudiation of her permanent status. This notice effectively brought the complainant back within the definition of a fixed term employee from the date of the notice of termination of employment to the termination date itself. 

In addition, it was submitted that where a contract of indefinite duration is granted, it has the effect of rendering void any term of the contract such as conditionality regarding funding. The complainant’s contract should not have contained such a term which denied the complainant her legal entitlements. 

In turn, the respondent argued that a claim under the Act could only be brought by a fixed term employee and the complainant was not such at the time her employment terminated. It also submitted that the complainant was advised of the threats to her employment due to the funding situation and that the contract was legitimately terminated on grounds of redundancy. 

In coming to its decision, the Court noted that the definition of fixed-term employee means a person having a contract of employment entered into directly with an employer where the end of the contract is determined by an objective condition such as arriving at a specific date, completing a specific task or the occurrence of a specific event. It concluded that the complainant’s contract did not have any such stipulation. 

Equally, the complainant’s contention that her contract of indefinite duration was spurious since it was conditional on continued funding was also rejected. The Court noted that many posts in the respondent’s College were funded from external sources and concluded that the termination of the contract of indefinite duration offered to the complainant in September 2006 was not foreseeable at the time it was offered. It did not accept that the three months' notice of termination of employment provided to the complainant in March 2001 altered the contract to one of a fixed term nature. Rather, it viewed it as complying with the respondent’s contractual and legal obligations to notify the complainant of its intention to make her redundant.

Thus, the complainant’s appeal failed on the ground that she was not at the time of her claim a fixed-term employee within the meaning of the Act. However, lying unspoken with this claim perhaps is the suggestion that a contract of indefinite duration must involve a right to permanency that cannot be affected by funding considerations. The difficulty with such an argument may be that the unfair dismissals legislation specifically allows for the fair dismissal of permanent employees on grounds of redundancy, provided that a genuine redundancy situation exists and the employer concerned has followed the correct procedural steps.

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Disclaimer The information in this article is provided as part of Legal Island's Employment Law Hub. We regret we are not able to respond to requests for specific legal or HR queries and recommend that professional advice is obtained before relying on information supplied anywhere within this article. This article is correct at 09/05/2012
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