AWD186

Preliminary Issue

The Respondent’s Notice of Appeal was received outside the 42-day time limit provided for in section 44(3) of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 (‘the 2015 Act’). The Respondent applied to the Court to extend the time under section 44(4) of the 2015 Act. It submits that its failure to give notice to the Court of its intention to appeal the Adjudication Officer’s decision was due to exceptional circumstances.

Those exceptional circumstances, in the Respondent’s submission, comprise of the following sequence of events:

• 
  •The Respondent’s business address changed on 24 March 2017 from Naas to Gowan House Unit 8, Carriglea Business Park, Naas Road, Dublin 12;

  •The Respondent set up a forwarding system with An Post for a period of six months from the date of the change of office address;

  •The first hearing before the Adjudication Officer took place on 13 April 2017 and both parties were in attendance; (IBEC was not on record for the Respondent at this time); the matter was adjourned to a later date;

  •The Respondent’s HR Director wrote to the Workplace Relations Commission on 24 April 2017 to notify it that she was the main point of contact for all cases in which the Respondent was a party; she supplied her office address in Derry and her email address to the WRC but did not notify the WRC of the change of office address from Naas to Dublin 12;

  •The WRC notified the Respondent- by letter dated December 2017 and addressed to its former address in Naas - of a resumed hearing date in January 2018;

  •The Respondent did not receive this notification and consequently did not attend the resumed hearing in January 2018;

  •IBEC came on record by telephone and email in late March 2018 but were not notified that the resumed hearing had already taken place;

  •The Adjudication Officer issued his decision on 12 April 2018, however, a copy of the written decision was not received by the Respondent;

  •The Respondent only became aware that the Adjudication Officer’s decision had issued when the Ms Zawadzka’s (‘the Complainant’) then representative wrote to IBEC in June 2018 requesting payment of the award made by the Adjudication Officer.

Discussion and Decision

The Court notes the sequence of events as outlined by the Respondent’s representative. However, it appears to the Court, having considered the written and oral submissions made to it, that the Respondent failed to take a number of basic steps to ensure that the Workplace Relations Commission was made aware of the change of its business address from Naas to Dublin 12. Furthermore, it appears to have been very remiss of the Respondent to limit its forwarding arrangement with An Post to a mere six months from 24 March 2017.

In all of the circumstances the Court finds that the failure to lodge the appeal within time was due to the Respondent’s failure to put in place adequate measures following the change of office address that took place in March 2017. This does not amount to exceptional circumstances within the meaning of section 44(4) of the 2015 Act.

The Respondent’s application to extend time for bringing the appeal is refused. The decision of the Adjudication Officer is, therefore, affirmed.

The Court so determines.

Signed on behalf of the Labour Court



Alan Haugh
LS______________________
21 November 2018Deputy Chairman



NOTE

Enquiries concerning this Determination should be addressed to Louise Shally, Court Secretary.