High Court Refuses To Grant Employee Injunction In Redundancy Dispute Case
In a case Nolan -v- EMO Oil Services Limited in which Ms. Justice Mary Laffoy delivered judgement on the 21st January 2009 the boundary has now been clearly set out between the role of the Courts and the Employment Appeals Tribunal when dealing with claims by disaffected employees who consider that they have either been unfairly selected for redundancy or that their redundancies were not genuine.
Mr. Nolan worked as a credit manager with EMO Oil Limited from November 2001 to the 30th November 2008. His employer had previously made redundancies due to the economic downturn and informed Mr. Nolan in September 2008 that he was being made redundant and that in future that his work would be done by the Managing Director and the Financial Controller. Mr. Nolan was employed under a Contract of Employment and he was given the correct notice under the terms of his Contract and paid all notice pay due to him.
Mr. Nolan applied to the High Court for an interlocutory injunction restraining his employer from proceeding with his dismissal by reason of redundancy from the post of Credit Manager and further sought an injunction requiring the Defendant to pay his salary up to the Trial of the action.
Mr. Nolan claimed that his redundancy was not a valid redundancy and furthermore that he should not have been selected for redundancy. These are arguments that are usually left to the Employment Appeals Tribunal. The High Court held that under Irish Law an employee has two potential avenues to secure redress for dismissal from employment which he believes is contrary to law. One is to bring an action at common law for wrongful dismissal where he claims that the dismissal was in breach of contract or in violation of his constitutional rights. The other is to pursue to a claim for unfair dismissal under the Unfair Dismissals Acts 1997 – 2008.
Judge Laffoy in refusing Mr. Nolan’s application for an injunction stated that as Mr. Nolan had got the required notice under his Contract of Employment, his Contract of Employment was lawfully terminated he could not seek a Declaration from the High Court regarding the validity or otherwise of his redundancy. This was a matter that would have to be determined by the Employment Appeals Tribunal. The Judge went on to state that “the Oireachtas in enacting the Unfair Dismissal Acts 1977 to 2008 and in introducing the concept of unfair dismissal provided for specific remedies for unfair dismissal and specific procedures for obtaining such remedies in specific forums, before a Rights Commissioner or the Employment Appeals Tribunal. For the Courts to expand its common law jurisdiction in parallel to the statutory code in relation to unfair dismissal and redundancy would end up supplanting part of that code”.
The High Court has now clearly drawn the demarcation lines between claims challenging the validity of redundancies where the contractual obligations of an employer to an employee have been met. Judge Laffoy clearly stated that the High Court in a plenary action has no jurisdiction to consider whether the redundancy was a genuine redundancy or not. It is clear that it is now becoming more and more difficult to obtain employment injunctions restraining dismissals unless there are clear breaches of contract and/or constitutional rights on the part of employers. The injunction route has often been used by employees as a tactic to gain leverage in proceedings and thereby force settlements and given the recent huge increase in employment litigation the clear reasoning behind the Nolan decision as stated by Judge Laffoy is to be welcomed.
