A doctor who said she was forced to quit her €125,000-a-year job at a cosmetic clinic amid claims of rotting rubbish, dead flies and an allegedly "Gestapo-like" practice manager has lost her constructive dismissal case.
The Workplace Relations Commission has rejected a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 by Dr Ashlinn Cummins against The James Aesthetic Clinic Limited, where she was employed as a facial aesthetics doctor from July 2023 to November 2024.
Her employer, a medical aesthetics business established as a startup on the premises of a group of five clinics owned by dentist James Hiney, had denied the statutory complaints - its lawyer calling the evidence set out by the claimant "at best flimsy".
Dr Cummins said in a legal submission there were "repeated breaches of contract, ongoing workplace bullying, unacceptable clinical standards and a failure to rectify serious patient safety risks", none of which, she said, was rectified by her employer.
Dr Cummins wrote in her legal filings that a clinic manager overseeing all five of the practices, identified in the WRC's decision only as "Ms D", subjected to her "repeated unprofessional and hostile conduct".
This included "shouting, eye-rolling and confrontational meetings", "interference with my clinical autonomy" and "passive-aggressive retaliation", Dr Cummins wrote.
At a meeting on 9 January last year, Dr Cummins said the clinic manager went as far as grabbing her phone, she wrote.
"Her conduct was described by [Mr Hiney] as 'bullying' and 'Gestapo-like' in a phone call of apology later that day," Dr Cummins added.
Dr Cummins also wrote that she was faced with an "unhygienic" working environment - writing in her legal submission that there was "no rubbish collection organised for months", with bags of refuse "left to rot in a medical setting".
She added that she found "40+ dead insects" in the reception area of one clinic as it had not been cleaned.
Dr Cummins also stated that administrative errors were giving her cause for concern about patient safety and that some salary and mileage claims were late or not paid.
She added that she was signed work off on stress leave by her GP in November 2024, following a dispute about a proposal to switch her to a contract of self-employment.
She added that she gave up a €125,000-a-year salary and took up new work on €36,500 less per annum when she resigned. "No rational person would leave such a salary unless they had no choice," she said.
Aaron Shearer BL, for the employer, submitted that Dr Cummins' resignation came as "a surprise" to Mr Hiney and left the aesthetic clinic business "unable to trade" for five or six months.
Mr Shearer submitted that there were "some issues in terms of readying the premises" but that these were not "particularly pronounced".
Referencing texts shown to the tribunal by the complainant, Mr Shearer argued they were, for the most part, not confrontational and neither substantiated the bullying allegation made by Dr Cummins nor spoke to a "dysfunctional workplace".
Counsel added that Dr Cummins' allegations about patient safety and hygiene had only been backed up with evidence that was "at best flimsy".
Mr Shearer added that the photos produced by Dr Cummins in support of her claims in respect of hygiene showed the condition of "one location, on one day, early in the employment relationship". They were not "reflective of an ongoing or serious issue", he added.
Mr Shearer added further that Dr Cummins had failed to use the company's grievance process prior to resigning. She left, he argued "because she had another job".
Adjudication officer Michael MacNamee concluded that Dr Cummins had "established that she made numerous complaints, that promises to address them were not kept, and that this situation led her to resign her employment".
However, as Dr Cummins had failed to invoke the company grievance process or establish that she had "good grounds" for not doing so, he found that the constructive dismissal claim "cannot succeed".
Rejecting the complaint, he found Dr Cummins "was not unfairly dismissed".
