The Labour Court has ordered the Dublin Business School (DBS) to pay €104,000 compensation to a lecturer after he was unfairly dismissed for logging into his college email account from Iran.
In February 2023, the school sacked Amir Sajad Esmaeily for gross misconduct after it concluded that “unauthorised access to his college emails whilst abroad amounted to a serious breach of college policy”.
The school stated that Esmaeily accessed his DBS system while visiting what it said was a “prohibited” country and this was despite being told not to do so before he left Ireland.
Esmaeily had travelled to attend the funeral of an uncle in Iran.
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At a previous hearing in the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), Esmaeily said his dismissal had a devastating effect on him.
However, at the WRC and subsequently at the Labour Court, Accountancy & Business College (Ireland) Limited, trading as Dublin Business School, conceded the dismissal was unfair.
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At the WRC, the school was ordered to pay €53,000 compensation to Esmaeily. He then successfully appealed the amount of the award to the Labour Court, where it was almost doubled to €104,000.
At the Labour Court hearing to decide upon quantum only, Esmaeily represented himself and stated that the WRC €53,000 awarded was inadequate and did not reflect the impact and duration of his losses.
Esmaeily said he suffered significant damage to his career and professional reputation when dismissed by the DBS as he had difficulty explaining to prospective employers why his employment had ended.
Esmaeily said a just and equitable award should be made in the range of €150,000.
In her findings, deputy Labour Court chairwoman Katie Connolly said that following his dismissal Esmaeily secured two part-time, temporary lecturing roles, at a lower rate of pay. One role ceased in 2024 and the roles allowed him to mitigate his loss by €26,000 per annum.
Based on Esmaeily’s DBS €91,133 salary, the maximum compensation award available was €182,266.
Connolly said that the court heard no evidence from DBS to justify the reasons for Esmaeily’s dismissal, or to support the assertion that Esmaeily contributed to that dismissal. Connolly confirmed that the dismissal was unfair.
Connolly said that Esmaeily had made efforts to mitigate his loss of earnings after his employment with DBS ended.
She said, however, the court was not fully satisfied that the steps taken were of a sufficient and adequate nature to mitigate fully against all losses incurred.
Ordering the award be set at €104,000, Connolly said Esmaeily had provided limited evidence of his efforts to mitigate his losses since 2024 and there were several months in which no job applications at all were made.
