The High Court has set aside a Labour Court determination that Blackrock College treated a part-time teacher less favourably than a full-time, Department-funded teacher. The court held that the chosen comparator was incorrect in law because the school remained the party paying the teacher who brought the claim.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Hedigan on 20 December 2013, concerned the school’s appeal on a point of law under section 17(6) of the Protection of Employees (Part-Time Work) Act 2001. The court confirmed that a statutory appeal was the appropriate route and described its role as limited to identifying an error of law or an unsustainable finding of fact.
The teacher had worked at the school teaching Spanish since 2000, for 14 hours a week. She complained to a Rights Commissioner in 2006 that her pay, pension and other employment conditions were less favourable than those of a full-time teacher funded by the Department of Education and Skills. The Rights Commissioner upheld her complaint in 2008 and directed that she receive a contract of indefinite duration comparable to full-time staff.
The Labour Court later accepted the Department-funded teacher as a comparator. In July 2012 it found no objective grounds for the less favourable treatment and awarded the teacher the same employment terms and conditions as her comparator from 12 January 2006.
The college argued that the Department-funded teacher had a different employment relationship because the Department determined that teacher’s pay and conditions, while the college paid the claimant. It relied on an earlier High Court ruling, Catholic University School v Dooley & Keogh, which had rejected Department-funded teachers as comparators for privately paid teachers.
The teacher argued that the college was employer of both teachers and that Department measures had affected her own pay and working conditions. The judgment records that the Department had directed a 5% pay cut from May 2011 and required 33 additional hours of work annually; the school retained the deducted pay. The court concluded that these changes did not alter the essential employer-employee relationship: the school remained the party paying the claimant. It agreed with the reasoning in the earlier case and found no need to make a preliminary reference to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
The order set aside the Labour Court’s 18 July 2012 determination on the ground that it erred in law in allowing the Department-funded full-time teacher as comparator. The judgment does not state a further remedy or order on the underlying employment complaint.