Summary Sentence:

In a scathing decision, the Adjudication Officer found the decision of the Respondent to unilaterally and without warning dismiss the Complainant for failing to relocate to Cork was “egregious” and directed the Respondent to pay the Complainant €300,000.

Background:

The Complainant is a well-regarded professor of economics who was recruited by the Respondent, University College Cork, to serve as a full professor of economics at its newly-formed school of business and law. The Complainant was hired in January 2021, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, and was located in the Netherlands prior to his hiring. The Complainant was able to provide his services remotely from his family home in the Netherlands through the spring semester in 2021, as students were unable to attend classes in-person at this time.

The Complainant says he continued to encounter difficulties in the 2021/2022 academic year in obtaining suitable accommodation for his family, who included a wife with chronic health concerns and a son with autism. This experience was not unusual for academic staff moving to UCC and the Complainant discussed this with his line manager and with colleagues. The Complainant attended on-campus on a number of occasions for a week at a time, but still remained in the Netherlands for this academic year.

At the start of the 2022/2023 academic year, in August 2022, the Complainant proposed a further accommodation which would allow him to continue providing his services remotely and/or on a hybrid basis. In response to this, the HR Director of the Respondent sent the Complainant an email which purported to dismiss the Complainant unilaterally. This was done without warning and with no process or procedure. The Respondent defended this action, saying that the actions of the Complainant constituted a fundamental breach of his contract and that the dismissal was compliant with the requirements of the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1977 – 2015.

Outcome:

The Adjudication Officer, in an unusually animated and excoriating decision, rejected the Respondent’s defence of its actions outright and commented that it was her “view that the losses suffered by the Complainant far exceed the maximum jurisdiction of the Act”, which is two years’ compensation. Taking into account the limited level of mitigation which was exhibited by the Complainant, the Adjudication Officer found the Complainant’s complaint of unfair dismissal to be well-founded and ordered the Respondent to pay the Complainant €300,000 in monetary compensation.

Practical Guidance for Employers:

This is an example of “what’s the worst that could happen” in a situation where a unilateral dismissal is made – a maximum direction of compensation worth two years’ pay and, perhaps even worse, an embarrassing and public tongue-lashing which singles out the acts of the HR Director as being wholly inappropriate.

The full case is here:  
https://www.workplacerelations.ie/en/cases/2024/april/adj-00042625.html