The High Court has refused to review a school board finding that a teacher called a pupil “a little bitch”, and a final written warning that followed. The court held that the dispute was moot and that the matters complained of were not suitable for judicial review.
The judgment, delivered by Mr Justice Twomey on 23 November 2016, concerned a Board of Management decision dated 24 February 2015. The board had found the complaint by the pupil’s parents well founded. After a disciplinary process, the school issued the teacher a final written warning on 21 April 2015, active for 12 months subject to satisfactory service. It said the warning would be removed from his personnel file after that period, subject to satisfactory improvement.
The teacher sought orders quashing the board’s finding, the warning and the school’s refusal to allow an appeal against the finding. He disputed that he had called the pupil a name. The court did not determine whether the alleged name-calling occurred or whether the board’s finding was correct.
The court noted that the warning had prima facie expired by April 2016, before the substantive hearing began in June. The school’s solicitors later said there was no finding that the teacher’s service during the 12-month period was unsatisfactory, but referred to a separate complaint received in November or December 2015 that the school had not investigated. The judge expressly said that separate complaint was outside the proceedings and had no relevance to the legality of the decisions under challenge.
The judge concluded judicial review was unavailable on grounds of mootness because the warning had apparently expired and was due to be removed from the teacher’s file. He also applied the de minimis principle, reasoning that the warning was not a suspension, other punishment or imposition of liability. The decision leading to it was likewise not amenable to review on that basis.
The court further said judicial review is discretionary and that scarce court resources should not be used for a dispute that was moot or concerned a minor matter. It declined to grant the relief sought. The judgment did not decide the truth of the allegation; it addressed whether judicial review was an appropriate remedy at that stage.