The High Court has rejected a Health Service Executive appeal over the time limit for a consultant’s wage complaint, ruling that the claim was brought in time for the period it covered. The court returned the case to the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) to consider the complaint’s merits; it did not decide whether the disputed pay was owed.
John McDermott, a medical consultant attached to Connolly Hospital in Blanchardstown, Dublin, was employed under a 2008 consultant contract. The judgment says salary increases scheduled under the contract from June 2009 onwards were not paid. The HSE argued that the complaint was out of time because the relevant decision not to sanction the increases had been made in 2009.
McDermott’s complaint, lodged with a Rights Commissioner on 16 June 2011, alleged unlawful deductions from 1 January to 30 June 2011. The Commissioner rejected the HSE’s time-limit argument, finding jurisdiction over alleged contraventions within the relevant six-month period, but then found against McDermott on the substance of the complaint. McDermott appealed to the EAT, which rejected the argument that time ran from the first non-payment. The HSE then appealed to the High Court on a point of law.
Justice Hogan interpreted section 6(4) of the Payment of Wages Act 1991, which gives a Rights Commissioner six months from the date of the contravention to which a complaint relates to hear it, subject to a possible extension in exceptional circumstances. He held that the wording makes the time limit depend on the period covered by the complaint. A complaint about deductions within the six months before it is presented may be in time even if similar deductions began earlier, he said.
The judge distinguished the case from Moran v Employment Appeals Tribunal, where the complaint had related to a period beyond the six-month limit. He concluded that McDermott’s complaint related to January through June 2011 and was presented within six months of that period. The High Court dismissed the HSE’s appeal on the preliminary time issue and sent the matter back to the EAT for a decision on the merits.