Disciplinary Procedures And Claims For Bullying And Harassment

Ruffley v The Board of Management of Saint Anne's School

"At some level this novel case will set a benchmark for all bullying claims."

The Supreme Court has dismissed a claim for bullying and harassment and has deemed an unfair disciplinary process not to be sufficient to amount to bullying.

Proceedings

The case of Ruffley v The Board of Management of Saint Anne's School [2017] IESC 33 is a personal injuries claim for bullying arising from a disciplinary process to which the plaintiff had been subjected by her employer. The High Court found that the disciplinary process was so defective as to constitute bullying and awarded the plaintiff damages totalling €255,276.39, including awards in respect of psychiatric injuries and loss of earnings both past and future. The decision was overturned on appeal in a majority decision of the Court of Appeal and that decision was then appealed to the Supreme Court which imposed a partial stay on the High Court award and ordered the employer to pay out the sum of € 100,000.

There was a general acceptance that the disciplinary process was seriously flawed and there appears to have been a consensus amongst the judges in the various courts that the process was so badly conducted that a court would have been readily willing to declare the process and any disciplinary sanction imposed as a result, invalid. However, the claim was one for personal injuries and ultimately, the Supreme Court, in decision given by O'Donnell J, dismissed the plaintiff's appeal.

Issues

The events giving rise to the claim happened in late 2009 and 2010 and O'Donnell J set out the facts of the case in great detail and he...