Advanced Elective In Employment Law Assignment Question 2025

Advanced Elective In Employment Law 2025

 Assignment Question

Your client is Mr John Murphy, Managing Director of Thrifty Plant Hire Limited (‘the business’). Your client has sought your advice following his receipt of a solicitor’s letter sent on behalf of a former employee of the business, Ms Sylvia Grey, whose employment Mr Murphy terminated some two weeks ago on Friday 2 May 2025.

Ms Grey successfully interviewed for the position of Yard Manager with the business in November 2024. Her employment in that role commenced on 2 January 2025. Mr Murphy personally interviewed Ms Grey as he considered the role of Yard Manager very central to the e.ective operation of the business. Mr Murphy was very impressed with the breadth of experience that Ms Grey spoke about at the interview. She had previously worked as a logistics manager in a wholesale distribution company and elaborated at interview on the range of transferrable skills she said she had acquired in that role that would be of benefit to her should she be successful in being appointed to the position Mr Murphy had on o.er.

Mr Murphy tells you that he likes e.iciency and has no time for ‘paperwork’ and consequently has more or less eliminated paper from the business, including when it comes to Human Resources, internal communications and general administration, all of which he tells you is conducted through a bespoke App. According to your client, Ms Grey ‘would have been aware’ that her appointment was subject to an initial probationary period of six months but accepts that he never formalised that in any written communication with Ms Grey.

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It was understood that as Yard Manager, Ms Grey’s primary responsibility was to ensure that the public areas where the machinery for hire was parked was maintained in good order and that all machines were cleaned promptly on return from hire and sent to the workshop for servicing as appropriate. This required Ms Grey to be able to drive tractors, forklifts and other heavy machinery and plant to and from the workshop as needed and to park them in an orderly sequence. The role also required her to develop good communication with the sta. in the sales o.ice, the workshop and in the cleaning bay.

Mr Murphy unfortunately received regular complaints from other Managers that Ms Grey did not appear to be up to the job. Mr Murphy tells you that he spoke to her regularly and explained to her how she might improve her performance and work on building relationships with colleagues.

On or around 28 April 2025, it appears that Ms Grey confided to a female colleague in the o.ice that she was about six weeks pregnant but asked her not to communicate that to anyone else and especially not to Mr Murphy. That week was a particularly busy and tense week in the business as everybody was preparing for a visit to take place the following week of a delegation from a well-regarded Japanese heavy machinery manufacturer as part of negotiations between the business and that manufacturer to stock and sell its products. Mr Murphy was anxious to make as good as an impression as possible and told Ms Grey that he wanted the yard in particular to be in pristine condition for the anticipated visit.

On Friday 2 May, Ms Grey went to the nearby local authority o.ices with the Transport Manager, Ivan Jones, whom she had come to regard as a trusted colleague, to tax a number of new vehicles recently purchased by the business. On the return journey, Ms Grey told Ivan that she was pregnant and also asked him not to divulge this to Mr Murphy as she would tell him directly in due course, in her own time. When Ms Grey and Mr Jones arrived back in the yard they were both summoned immediately to Mr Murphy’s o.ice. Mr Murphy told Mr Jones that he needed him to be a witness to the conversation he wished to have with Ms Grey.

Mr Murphy told Ms Grey that he regretted that things had come to the point that they had but that, in his view, Ms Grey had not lived up to the potential he had believed she had and as a result he was letting her go. He also told her that he had made repeated e.orts since January to assist her to perform well in her role but that any improvements in her performance always appeared to be short-lived. Mr Murphy made much of what he said was the very shabby condition of the yard just days before the delegation from Japan was due to visit. Finally, he told Ms Grey he was letting her go ‘there and then’ with two weeks’ pay in lieu of notice. He handed her a pre-prepared letter to that e.ect. Mr Jones did not say anything in the course of the meeting and did not mention that Ms Grey had told him earlier that day about her pregnancy. When Mr Murphy handed the letter to Ms Grey, she then told him that she was seven weeks pregnant. Mr Murphy did not react other than to say that he wished her well in the future.

Questions:

Please set out your advice to Mr Murphy in the form of a letter that deals, in particular, with the following matters:

1. The statutory complaint(s) Ms Grey might initiate against her former employer arising from her circumstances generally, and the termination of her employment in particular, specifying the time limit within which such complaints must be commenced. (20 marks)
2. The likelihood of Ms Grey succeeding should she proceed to bring the complaints identified above to the Workplace Relations Commission. (10 marks)
3. The location of the burden of proof in respect of each of the statutory complainants identified above. (10 marks)
4. The procedure you, as the company’s solicitor, will follow to defend any statutory complaints referred by Ms Grey, prior to hearing. (20 marks)
5. The potential forms of redress that may be awarded by an Adjudication O.icer to Ms Grey if she succeeds in some or all of her statutory complaints. (10 marks)
6. The merits and risks of engaging with Ms Grey and/or her solicitor in relation to a potential compromise of her statutory claims. (10 marks)