Court of Appeal overturns High Court decision in significant bullying and harassment case

The Court of Appeal has overturned the decision of the High Court in Ruffley v Board of Management of St Anne's School by a two to one majority in what is understood to be the first substantive judgement of the Court of Appeal in a claim for personal injuries arising from work related stress.

In the High Court, O'Neill J made a substantial award of damages in favour of Ms Ruffley, a Special Needs Assistant, who he found had been subjected to persistent inappropriate behaviour during the course of a disciplinary process. The aggregate amount awarded to Ms Ruffley was €255,276.

The Board of Management appealed the High Court’s decision to the Court of Appeal. The Court of Appeal stated that the issue in the appeal was whether the actions of the employer in the context of the disciplinary process amounted to bullying in the work place and if so whether there was a causal link between that bullying and certain psychological injuries allegedly suffered by Ms Ruffley.

Irvine J noted that the test for conduct which amounts to bullying was set out by the Supreme Court in Quigley v Complex Tooling. Such conduct must be (i) repeated, (ii) inappropriate, and (iii) undermining of the dignity of an employee at work. Furthermore, “a plaintiff cannot succeed in a claim unless he also proves that he suffered damage amounting to personal injury as a result of his employer's breach of duty. Where the personal injury is not of a direct physical kind, it must amount to an identifiable psychiatric injury”.

The Court of Appeal stated that “bullying can only be identified retrospectively, that is to say its first incidence only amounts to bullying by virtue of its repetition. Secondly, incidences of inappropriate conduct do not have to be of the same nature or character to constitute bullying. Different types of behaviour when directed to one person may constitute bullying. Thirdly, what amounts to inappropriate behaviour must be objectively determined by the court and the test does not centre upon the intention of the person or persons concerned in the alleged bullying. The fact that the test is objective is clear from the decision of Kearns P. in  Glynn v The Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform..”

Applying this test to the facts in the Ruffley case, the Court of Appeal was not satisfied that the High Court's finding that the plaintiff had been subjected to repeated inappropriate behaviour could be sustained.

Irvine J stated that while bullying in the workplace might, depending on the particular circumstances, occur in the context of a disciplinary process, the evidence in this case did not support the type of calibrated inappropriateness which distinguishes bullying from other types of workplace wrongs. The Court of Appeal found that while the Board of Management conducted the investigative and disciplinary process in a ‘hopelessly flawed manner’, this did not bring the Board’s conduct ‘anywhere close to meeting the definition of bullying as set out in Quigley'.

Allowing the appeal, the Court concluded that 'on the facts of this particular case, objectively ascertained, the defendant could not be considered guilty of the type of repetitive inappropriate conduct which undermined the plaintiff's right to dignity in the workplace for a period of over a year as was found by the trial judge.' 

For more information, please contact Elaine Kelly, or your usual contact in the ByrneWallace Employment Team.