The High Court has allowed Mary Munnelly’s appeal against an order striking out her action against former employer City Learning Ltd and two of its directors, but has not decided the underlying employment and bullying claims.
In a judgment delivered on 17 November 2022, Mr Justice Barr refused the defendants’ application to strike out the proceedings. He found that the action could continue because several issues Munnelly had raised were not decided in an earlier case, and because the Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) authorisation requirement did not apply to this claim as pleaded.
Munnelly alleges that Margaret Hassett, the company’s managing director, bullied and harassed her, leading her to leave her job. She claims she was constructively dismissed, suffered post-traumatic stress disorder and lost earnings. She also says a work reference wrongly described her as a part-time telesales consultant rather than a sales executive, limiting her ability to find similar work.
The defendants deny wrongdoing. They dispute that Munnelly was an employee or sales executive, maintaining she worked as an independent contractor and part-time telesales executive.
Munnelly had previously sued City Learning alone. That action was dismissed after a hearing in 2018, and she did not appeal. The High Court said the earlier judge had rejected her claims that emails to a government agency and the reference were defamatory. However, the judge had not ruled on whether the reference was accurate, her job description or employment status, or her allegations of bullying and harassment.
Justice Barr held that bringing those unresolved issues in the later action did not amount to relitigating matters already decided or abuse of process. Munnelly could not, however, raise again her claims that the emails or reference were defamatory. The court also rejected her argument that fraud in how her role was described undermined the earlier judgment, saying there was no evidence that it had been procured by fraud.
The defendants had argued that the action sought damages for personal injuries and required prior PIAB authorisation. The court found that the claimed loss of earnings was pleaded as arising from Munnelly’s departure from work and the disputed reference, not from an inability to work caused by PTSD. It therefore held that the action fell within an exclusion in the 2003 Act and did not require PIAB authorisation.
The court proposed to allow the appeal, refuse the strike-out application and award the costs of both hearings to Munnelly, jointly and severally against the defendants, with the costs order stayed pending final determination of the action. The judgment invited written submissions within two weeks if the parties disagreed with the proposed order and listed the matter for mention on 9 December 2022 for final orders. The judgment does not resolve the merits of Munnelly’s remaining claims.