ADJUDICATION OFFICER DECISION
Adjudication Reference: ADJ-00054222
Parties:
| Complainant | Respondent |
Parties | Mark Noel Galvin | Dublin Bus |
Representatives |
| IBEC |
Complaint:
Act | Complaint Reference No. | Date of Receipt |
Complaint seeking adjudication by the Workplace Relations Commission under section 6 of the Payment of Wages Act, 1991 | CA-00066089-001 | 18/09/2024 |
Date of Adjudication Hearing: 21/01/2025
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady
Procedure:
In accordance with Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act, 2015 following the referral of the complaint to me by the Director General, I inquired into the complaint and gave the parties an opportunity to be heard by me and to present to me any evidence relevant to the complaint.
Background:
This was a complaint made under the Payment of Wages Act but turns on the interpretation of the respondent’s Occupational Injury Policy. |
Summary of Complainant’s Case:
The complainant did not attend the hearing.
It emerged only after the hearing that he had submitted medical certification to the WRC, the validity of which is considered below. |
Summary of Respondent’s Case:
The respondent made a submission and attended the hearing. |
Findings and Conclusions:
As noted above, the complainant submitted a medical certificate to the WRC the day before the hearing, but which did not come to the Adjudicator’s attention until the day after the hearing due to a normal delay in the processing of such matters.
The certificate was dated January 16th and addressed simply ‘To whom it may concern’. It merely stated that the complainant was ‘not fit for work’ ‘due to medical condition’.
There was no reference to a WRC hearing or to the fitness of the complainant to attend such a hearing, and as noted it was not addressed for the attention of the WRC.
In considering whether this is sufficient grounds to reschedule the hearing the following are relevant factors.
There could well be reasons why a person is medically unfit to discharge their work functions which would not also render them unable to attend a WRC hearing. The complainant is a bus driver; the requirements of which are, self-evidently different to those involved in attending a brief WRC hearing.
Of course, it could be that a person may not be fit to attend a WRC hearing either, but if so, the medical certification should clearly state this.
On the face of the certificate, the certifying practitioner may have been given no indication that the complainant was due to attend a hearing, or to form any judgement as to his fitness to do so. This is the minimum that is required.
It is not uncommon that a person on sick leave would be certified fit to participate in certain HR processes (investigations, for example) while remaining generally unfit for work. Indeed, the satisfactory conclusion of such processes may occasionally have a positive bearing on a person’s returning to work (although that is a general observation and not made in relation to the current complaint).
In addition, the complainant had the certificate for some four days before submitting it to the WRC.
This represents a level of discourtesy to the Commission and the respondent that is unacceptable, and which put the respondent to avoidable cost and to the inconvenience of attending the hearing unnecessarily.
Accordingly, I find this to be entirely inadequate for the purposes of a postponement of a WRC hearing. Therefore, I do not accept it represents a sufficient basis to justify the complainant’s non-attendance and I proceed to find that his complaint is not well founded. |
Decision:
Section 41 of the Workplace Relations Act 2015 requires that I make a decision in relation to the complaint in accordance with the relevant redress provisions under Schedule 6 of that Act.
For the reasons set out above complaint CA-00066089-001 is not well founded. |
Dated: 05th of February 2025
Workplace Relations Commission Adjudication Officer: Pat Brady
Key Words:
Non-attendance, medical certification. |