A businessman has denied an allegation that he got into a "fit of temper" with an employee and told her "you're fired" after the worker copied the firm's auditor on an email complaining that her pay had come late for the third month in a row.
The worker, Thomasina Egan, said her former boss, tech entrepreneur Donal Morris, was "apoplectic" on the phone to her on 29 November 2023.
Ms Egan has brought a statutory complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against her former employer, Red Zinc Ltd, a telemedicine software company set up by Mr Morris in 2004.
The circumstances of how Ms Egan's employment came to an end are disputed by the company, which maintains she was not dismissed, but resigned and must therefore make out a case for constructive dismissal if she is to succeed in the claim.
It means that before hearing the case in full, the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) must first decide which side bears the burden of proof and must present their case first. It took evidence yesterday from Ms Egan and Mr Morris in a bid to resolve that point.
"We say it's a constructive dismissal case - I accept there's no letter of resignation, but there's a telephone call which can be evidenced on both sides in which the complainant indicated to Mr Morris that she didn't want to be contacted by the respondent ever again," said the company’s solicitor, David O’Riordan of Sherwin O’Riordan LLP.
Solicitor Gerald Kean, for the complainant, said the evidence would be that Mr Morris "apologised to my client for terminating her contract [when] he was in a fit of temper".
"She said no, her position was untenable," he added.
Ms Egan said she copied in the auditor on an email to Mr Morris asking "why the wages were not paid" on 29 November 2023, when her boss failed to answer a call.
"This was the third month in a row not being paid on time. The money should have been in the bank on the 27th," she said.
Mr Morris then texted her to say she would have confirmation of the payment by email, but when she opened her work email account she found that she was "being served a full and final warning".
"You're fired"
"I rang him back and said: 'Are you absolutely serious?’" Ms Egan said. "He said: ‘It’s been done, you’re to have no communication with anyone," she added.
She said her employer then informed her he had removed her access to all work-related computer systems, including bank accounts and the company’' Revenue account.
Ms Egan said Mr Morris’s words to her were: "You’re fired."
Under questioning from Mr O'Riordan, Ms Egan said Mr Morris was "apoplectic, I’m saying it, apoplectic" about the email she circulated to the auditor, and that she and her boss "had a big argument" on the call.
Mr O’Riordan put it to her that the letter she had found in her email account referred to a "final warning, not a dismissal".
"I hear what you’re saying. The tenor of the letter he wrote was blaming me for a miscalculation when we had discussed very clearly why an amount had to be €181,000 and not €121,000 [but] it was blaming me for a mistake," she said.
Ms Egan's evidence was that the letter had referred to a "shortfall of €60,000" which Ms Egan was to "explain".
"It was very unlike Donal. He's a very calm individual. On that occasion, he was in serious financial difficulties and up against it with me being gone. I afforded him a certain leeway and he went through and kept doubling down to ‘You’re fired’."
Mr O'Riordan said Mr Morris would deny saying that, while Ms O’Riordan said she had a witness who had heard the call.
Mr O'Riordan put it to Ms Egan that in a subsequent phone conversation with Mr Morris early in December 2023, she had told her boss: "Don’t ever contact me again".
Ms Egan said she last spoke to Mr Morris by phone on 4 December that year, and denied "emphatically" that she told her employer that.
Mr Morris said he could not recall the conversation on 29 November Ms O’Riordan described. However, he said that to the best of his recollection he had not at any stage told her she was "fired".
He could not recall the exact date of his last phone call with but said it happened during the week of December 4 that year. He said their conversation was "normal and calm" and "wasn't acrimonious" on that occasion.
He said that when he asked Ms Egan to confirm her address so that he could send her a physical copy of the 29 November letter, she told him: "Don’t contact me again."
"I took it to mean Ms Egan didn't want to be involved with the company any more and that she’d resigned," he said.
Adjudicator Michael McEntee has asked the parties to provide copies of correspondence and phone records to clarify the sequence of events, and said he would write to the parties with his decision on the preliminary dispute.
