The High Court has ordered that the costs of an employee’s interlocutory injunction motion be costs in the cause, so they will follow the eventual outcome of his ongoing employment dispute. The court did not decide whether his employer was entitled to suspend him or investigate his workplace relationship.
The employee was suspended on full pay on 9 March 2021, pending an investigation into an alleged failure to disclose a personal relationship with his immediate manager. He sought interim and interlocutory relief to stop the suspension and investigation. The employer lifted the suspension on 20 April and said on 28 April that it would not continue the investigation. The motion was not argued, and the judgment dealt with the parties’ competing applications for its costs.
The employee alleged that the investigation was predetermined and that his suspension and the relevant handbook requirement were unlawful, among other claims. The employer denied those allegations and maintained that the relationship had to be disclosed and that it was entitled to investigate potential workplace conflicts. Those issues remain disputed in the underlying action.
The judge said the end of the suspension and investigation had overtaken the practical need for the injunction, but had not made the action moot. The employee’s claims for declarations and damages remained live. The parties also disputed why the employer lifted the suspension and ended the investigation; the court said it could not resolve that question at this stage.
The judge declined to decide whether the motion would have succeeded or whether it was necessary. He said the lawfulness of the handbook provision and the employer’s actions would need to be determined at trial, and the outcome of an unargued motion would not settle who should bear its costs. He also rejected the employer’s request for an order against the employee or, alternatively, that the employer’s costs be costs in the cause.
The court ordered that both parties’ costs of the interlocutory motion, along with the employee’s costs of the ex parte application for short service, be costs in the cause. The judgment did not determine the merits of the employment claims.