Complainant

Respondent

Anonymised Parties

A Complainant

A State Agency

Act

Complaint/Dispute Reference No.

Date of Receipt

Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under Section 21 Equal Status Act, 2000

CA-00019580-001

29/05/2018

The complainant referred his complaint on 29 May 2018. On his complaint form, he gave two different names for the respondent state body, as well as naming three individual employees of that body.   These complaints were listed as five separate complaints by the Commission, of which the within complaint is one. All five were delegated to me by the Director General on 14 August 2018 for investigation and decision. I had a joint hearing with the parties on 27 September 2018.

I am acceding to the complainant’s request for anonymity in all five cases because of the complainant’s unusual name and because of concerns he expressed that the within complaints may be traceable to a family law matter in which he is involved.

As regards the respondent’s name as given in the within complaint, the complainant argued that in terms of the names by which the respondent is known in public, there are slight variations in the name, and that he wanted to preserve his position in terms of the within litigation. In additional written observations received post-hearing, he argued even more strongly that the changes to the respondent name on its stationery amounted to the respondent concealing its true name from him. Whilst he noted that the respondent accepted liability under one particular name, he argued that it was the task of the Adjudication Officer to ascertain the correct name.

Counsel for the respondent, at the hearing of the complaint, indicated that his client wished to defend the within complaint under the slightly different name which is used in ADJ-00015022.

Based on the comments of the parties, I decided to proceed with the main decision in the within complaint in my decision in ADJ-00015022. If a respondent to a particular complaint accepts responsibility under a particular name, as was the case here, there is no need for an Adjudication Officer to make a separate finding on this matter. As regards the within complaint, I am satisfied that it is wholly identical with the one in ADJ-00015022, and therefore becomes moot.  

In technical legal terms, given that Section 22 of the Equal Status Acts does not provide for a dismissal for mootness, moot cases are subsumed under the definitional umbrella, as it were, of “frivolous and vexatious”. Given that I accept that the complainant simply wished to preserve his position, and that, possibly as a result of various re-brandings, the respondent state agency does indeed have subtle name variations in its documentation, I wish to stress even more strongly than usual that finding the within complaint “frivolous and vexatious” is not pejorative in any way against the complainant. Furthermore, I accept that it is the practice of the Commission to split up complaints against several named respondents in this matter, even when they are listed on a single complaint form, as was the case with the within cases.     That is, I wish to note expressly that it was not the complainant who brought five separate cases gratuitously.     I do, however, need to make a decision which disposes of this specific complaint within the legal framework provided in the Equal Status Acts.

A complaint is frivolous and vexatious when any decision made by a Court or Tribunal cannot change, or improve upon, the outcome which already exists for the parties. Hence, I am satisfied that the meaning of “frivolous and vexatious” pursuant to S. 22 of the Acts encompasses moot complaints.   Hardiman J, in the case of Goold v. Collins and ors [IESC 38 (12 July 2004)], undertook an extensive review of the doctrine of mootness, both in Ireland and in other jurisdictions. The net point of Hardiman J’s deliberations was that a case is moot when it does not feature a live dispute between the parties, and a judicial decision on any outstanding issues would have no impact on the parties.   Following Hardiman J’s reasoning, I am of the opinion that the case on hand is similarly moot because I am seised of an identical complaint from the same complainant, for which the respondent accepts it is the correct respondent, which will deliver the substantive decision of the matter complained of.

Pursuant to my powers under S. 22 of the Equal Status Acts, I am dismissed the within complaint as frivolous and vexatious for the reasons outlined above.

Mootness – identical complaint in existence - Goold v. Collins and ors [IESC 38 (12 July 2004)] – S. 22 – frivolous and vexatious.