A tile shop owner who sacked his wife two years after they had separated must pay her €20,000 for unfair dismissal, the Workplace Relations Commission has ruled.
Alan Collins had claimed in evidence that his estranged partner Michelle Collins had used the company credit card without consultation and had talked to staff and customers about their private life and divorce, making them uncomfortable.
Michelle Collins countered that her husband was "bringing their personal life into the workplace" and that she was "bullied out of the shop floor".
Divorce proceedings are "ongoing" between Mr Collins, owner of the Tile & Wood Factory Outlet (Limerick) Ltd, and Mrs Collins, the Workplace Relations Commission noted in a decision published today on her employment law complaint.
The tribunal heard Mr Collins accused Mrs Collins of using a company credit card "without consultation" and said the company would be starting a disciplinary investigation for alleged misappropriation of company funds.
The WRC was told the couple separated in August 2019, but that Mrs Collins continued on with the firm through 2020, before taking sick leave in November that year and having her employment terminated in 2021.
Having taken sick leave in November 2020, Mrs Collins was accused the following July of misappropriating company funds and told by the company's HR advisor that she would be "investigated for fraud", she said.
Mr Collins told the tribunal money had been taken out of a company bank account and that he had made it "clear" to Mrs Collins she "could not use the business account for personal use" – and that she should put the money back.
Mrs Collins said her husband "told her" to take a sum out of the company account "around November 2020", but that she returned the sum to the account – stating in evidence that her husband’s words to her at the time were that he could "do [her] for fraud".
Mr Collins also said the complainant also used a company credit card while out sick "without consultation".
Mrs Collins said they used the company card "all the time".
After she was certified fit to go back to work in the early summer of 2021, she said she was "taken aback" to be presented with a list of allegations against her and suspended with pay pending a disciplinary investigation.
She told the WRC that she got no reply after writing to the company questioning the legitimacy of the disciplinary proceedings being brought against her, and that she was not given a date for an investigation meeting.
This was disputed by her husband, who said Mrs Collins "refused to attend" the meeting.
"While out sick, [Mrs Collins] used the company credit card without consultation. Before she went out sick, [she] would have talked to staff and customers about their private life and the divorce. Customers were uncomfortable about it. The complainant was not acting in the best interest of the company," he said in evidence.
Mrs Collins said her husband was "bringing their personal life into the workplace" and that she was "bullied out of the shop floor".
She said she waited for the company to launch an investigation but that nothing happened until her €500-a-week pay was stopped in October 2021.
The company’s solicitor, Sinead Garry of John McNamara and Associates, argued the complainant had no right to bring a case under the Unfair Dismissals Act, arguing that she was not an employee, but a director of the firm.
Mr Collins’s evidence was that his wife was "never assigned hours and was never rostered" – but could "come and go as she pleased".
Ms Garry argued that Mrs Collins had tried to "resile" from employment status by questioning the legitimacy of Mr Collins's proposals to subject her to disciplinary procedures.
Catriona Dwane of O’Gorman Solicitors, appearing for the complainant, argued a directorship did not exclude employment status and that Mrs Collins was "at all times treated and viewed as an employee".
Mrs Collins said she "only knows tiling" – with her only other work history being in delis and shops two decades ago – and that she spent 13 years "building the business".
Her husband had been able to make a career as a tiler while she stayed at home to mind their children, she said – and that because the dispute is "known in the industry", nobody in the tiling trade would take her on "because of Mr Collins’s behaviour".
In her decision, adjudicating officer Ewa Sobanska wrote that after applying the relevant legal tests, she found Mrs Collins had been "at all material times" an employee.
She noted that Mrs Collins had written back to her employer referring to the "impact of personal circumstances" on the disciplinary process after getting a notification letter and got "no further communication" from her employer on the matter before she was terminated later that year.
Ms Sobanska added that the employer’s actions were "contrary to the norms of employment relations practice in Ireland" and that Mrs Collins had been denied her "constitutional right" to fair procedures and natural justice.
As there had been no investigation process, Ms Sobanska wrote, she could not rule on whether dismissal was a "reasonable response" to any "alleged shortcomings" by the complainant.
Upholding Mrs Collins’ complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977, she ordered the firm to pay the complainant €20,000 in compensation.
