Teacher’s contract void as it took protections she already had, court rules

A school’s fixed-term contract for a teacher was void because it deprived her of protections she had already acquired, including against unfair dismissal, the High Court has ruled.

Mr Justice Garrett Simons rejected an appeal by the board of management of Malahide Community School in Dublin over a Labour Court finding that Dawn Marie Conaty had not freely entered into a fixed term contract with full knowledge and informed consent of its implications.

Ms Conaty, an English and religion teacher, spent two years working at the school without a written contract from 2013 to 2015.

In 2015, the principal, who told the Labour Court she mistakenly thought Ms Conaty’s employment for those years had been on fixed term contracts, asked her to sign a contract for 2015/16 school year.

The school contended, by signing the 2015/16 contract, she relinquished the statutory employment protection rights she had acquired.

Mr Justice Garrett Simons said the school’s grounds of appeal to the High Court were “beguiling in their simplicity”. The protection afford by the Unfair Dismissals Act “is more robust than the school’s submission appears to suggest”, he said.

A provision in a contract which purports to deprive an employee of rights they have already acquired can only be characterised as an agreement which purports to limit or exclude the application of the Act, he said.

The provisions of the 2015/16 fixed term contract were therefore void, he said.

The judge said one of those provisions, that the contract may be renewed depending on the demand for English and religion subjects, was not unequivocal and therefore did not meet the requirement making it a fixed term contract.

“The reference to the contingency of the contract being renewed is not something which a reasonable person would discount as merely ‘aspirational’ and accordingly of no legal effect”, he said.

Ms Conaty’s initial employment (2013-15) had been on the basis of a permanent contract. It could not be therefore said her employment (in 2015/16) was under contract for a fixed term but rather it is properly characterised as one under a permanent contract, the judge said.

While the school argued it was legitimate to have regard to the future employment of an employee, on this interpretation someone permanently employed for a number of years could be moved on to a fixed term contract with the loss of their acquired rights.

“Such an interpretation would self evidently be open to potential abuse”.

He also found the signing of the 2015 contact was not sufficient to waive her statutory rights in the absence of informed consent.

He dismissed the school’s appeal.

The school had previously appealed to the High Court over the first Labour Court decision in relation to Ms Conaty in which she was found to have been unfairly dismissed.

The Labour Court made an order re-instating her but the school appealed that to the High Court. A separate appeal by the school the High Court seeking a stay on her re-instatement was rejected.

In March last year, the High Court found in favour over the school in relation to the main appeal over unfair dismissal but but remitted the matter back to the Labour Court for re-consideration.

When the Labour Court again found in her favour, the school again appealed to the High Court arguing, among other things, it had no legal obligation to advise Ms Conaty she was relinquishing already acquired rights when she signed the 2015/16 contract. It claimed the Labour Court erred in introducing what it said was an additional requirement of informed consent (when signing the contract).

Ms Conaty opposed the appeal and said the Labour Court decision should stand.