The Supreme Court has allowed an appeal by former meat plant worker Tibor Baranya and sent his unfair dismissal claim back to the Labour Court for a fresh decision on whether he made a protected disclosure.
The Court did not decide that Mr Baranya made such a disclosure or that it led to his dismissal. It directed the Labour Court to reconsider what he said to supervisors in September 2015, and whether his words, in their context, amounted to an allegation that workplace health or safety was endangered.
Mr Baranya, a skilled butcher employed by Rosderra Irish Meats Group Limited, said he was in pain and wanted a different role. He maintained that he told his supervisor on 15 September 2015 that his pain was due to his work. Rosderra disputed that account, saying he only said he was in pain. The company said he was dismissed three days later after walking off the production line; Mr Baranya argued his dismissal followed a protected disclosure.
An adjudication officer rejected his complaint in 2018, finding that his communications about pain were a grievance rather than a protected disclosure and that he was dismissed for walking off the line. The Labour Court upheld that result in 2019, concluding that his communication did not disclose wrongdoing. The High Court dismissed his appeal on a point of law in 2020.
In a judgment delivered by Mr Justice Gerard Hogan on 1 December 2021, the Supreme Court said that a complaint about an employee’s own health or safety can, in principle, qualify as a protected disclosure under the Protected Disclosures Act 2014. The Court said the legislation does not require a complaint to concern other workers, and no particular wording is necessary if the words and their context make the alleged workplace health or safety concern clear.
The Court found two errors in the Labour Court’s decision. It had relied on a 2015 Code of Practice that wrongly suggested personal complaints about workplace health and safety could not be protected disclosures. It also had not made sufficiently clear findings about what Mr Baranya actually said and whether he connected his pain to workplace practices.
The Labour Court must now decide those questions afresh. Only if it finds that Mr Baranya made a protected disclosure will it go on to consider whether the dismissal was wholly or mainly caused by that disclosure and was therefore unfair under the relevant legislation. The Supreme Court made no finding on either question.