The High Court has dismissed three of Pascal Hosford’s four proceedings against State bodies but allowed a claim alleging detriment for making protected disclosures to continue in a narrower form.
In a judgment delivered on 19 March 2024, Mr Justice Rory Mulcahy dismissed proceedings challenging deductions from Mr Hosford’s pension lump sum and final salary, and a separate challenge concerning the social insurance treatment of proprietary company directors. He refused to dismiss a fourth case, concerning alleged penalisation and constructive dismissal, but set aside its Statement of Claim and directed Mr Hosford to file a replacement limited to his tort claim under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014.
The pension case concerned a deduction of €6,702.60, which Mr Hosford said was made under a Department of Public Expenditure and Reform circular without his consent. The final salary case challenged a separate €2,163.70 deduction and the constitutionality of a provision of the Payment of Wages Act 1991.
The judge found that substantially the same challenges to the legislation and circular had been raised in earlier judicial review proceedings and rejected on their merits. Recasting them in new proceedings would be an abuse of process, he said. He also concluded that the claims did not disclose a reasonable cause of action.
The fourth dismissed case challenged the treatment of proprietary company directors for social insurance purposes. The judge held that Mr Hosford had no standing to bring that claim and that substantially the same issues had already been rejected in earlier proceedings.
The remaining case alleges that Mr Hosford suffered detriment between April and November 2019 because he made protected disclosures, and that his resignation amounted to constructive dismissal. The defendants argued that prior complaints to the Workplace Relations Commission and other proceedings barred the claim.
The judge said earlier complaints that had been decided on their merits could not be reopened. But the WRC had dismissed a later complaint as out of time without deciding its substance. Whether that dismissal bars a tort claim under section 13 of the 2014 Act raised a novel and complex legal issue that should not be decided on a motion to dismiss, he said. He left open the defendants’ ability to argue the point later.
The judge set aside the Statement of Claim because it included parties and requests for relief beyond the tort claim in the plenary summons. He directed Mr Hosford to file a new pleading confined to that claim. The court refused the defendants’ request for an order requiring prior permission for further proceedings on the company-director issue, while cautioning that renewed attempts to reframe dismissed claims could prompt further applications.
The court listed the matter for 9 April 2024 to make final orders and address costs.