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Top law firm ordered to pay solicitor €5,000 over ‘long Covid’ discrimination

Mason Hayes and Curran told to retrain its managers on disability policies

Law firm Mason Hayes and Curran has been ordered to retrain its managers on disability policies and pay €5,000 compensation to a dismissed solicitor suffering from long Covid and depression following a Workplace Relations Commission ruling that it discriminated against him. Photograph: Alan Betson

Stephen Bourke
Tue Apr 30 2024 - 15:29

Law firm Mason Hayes and Curran has been ordered to retrain its managers on disability policies and pay €5,000 compensation to a dismissed solicitor suffering from long Covid and depression following a ruling that it discriminated against him.

The company, Ireland’s fifth-largest legal practice, with a turnover of €114 million last year, has also been given three months to provide training to senior managers on its anti-discrimination policies by the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC).

It follows a finding that Mason Hayes and Curran LLP failed to consider whether it could assist senior associate solicitor Oisín Gourley with reasonable accommodation for long Covid and depression before deciding he had failed his probation and dismissing him last year.

In a decision published on Tuesday the employment tribunal rejected further allegations of discriminatory harassment, victimisation and dismissal made by Mr Gourley under the Employment Equality Act 1998 against the firm.

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Mr Gourley had claimed his dismissal from the company after six months’ probation in August 2023 was linked to his disabilities and that having filed a grievance alleging disability discrimination, acts of harassment or victimisation continued until October that year as it was investigated.

John Cleary of trade union Siptu, appearing for the employee, submitted that his client was experiencing “a lot of fatigue” and failing to retain or process information during his time with the firm – leaving him “anxious about making mistakes and about the quality of his work” and feeling “overwhelmed”.

The law firm’s barrister, Rosemary Mallon BL, submitted that the client Mr Gourley had been hired to look after had expressed concerns about the handling of its files in June 2023. However, it held off on making a formal warning under the service level agreement as it was the first time in nine years there had been an issue, she submitted.

“The situation was not tenable,” Ms Mallon submitted, as Mr Gourley’s workload was “half” that of others on his team.

Catherine Allen, a partner in the firm and Mr Gourley’s line manager as head of its public, regulatory and investigations department, told Mr Gourley on August 9th that she would be bringing a human resources (HR) representative to a planned weekly “catch-up” meeting the following day, it was submitted. Mr Gourley phoned her asking whether he was facing dismissal and stating that he wanted to get his trade union involved, Mr Cleary submitted.

In an email that evening, Ms Allen told Mr Gourley that she recalled the complainant disclosing long Covid to her, but that the worker had not sought reasonable accommodation for the condition. She added that it was the first time he had mentioned depression.

Mr Gourley wrote in a replying email: “I believe that I should be allowed more time for the treatment of my depression and long Covid to improve my performance and also be provided with some assistive technology,” he wrote.

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He was dismissed at the meeting the following day, the tribunal heard.

Mr Gourley’s position was that he told Ms Allen about anxiety and depression earlier in the summer and that the alleged performance issues were “exaggerated and not the real reason” for his dismissal.

Ms Allen’s evidence was that she had decided not to extend Mr Gourley’s probation following a meeting with the client on July 19th, 2023, but held off on telling him this because they were both due to take annual leave. She explained that no probation extension was possible for Mr Gourley because the client “would not work with him”.

In her decision, adjudicator Marie Flynn wrote that the company had been obliged to examine Mr Gourley’s fitness for the role in line with equality law after he set out his disabilities and asked for accommodation.

The move to dismiss Mr Gourley on competence grounds “was taken in the absence of any assessment of his capabilities and whether reasonable accommodation could be put in place to address his shortcomings”, the adjudicator added.

Ms Flynn declared that aspect of Mr Gourley’s complaint to be “well founded”, ordering Mason Hayes and Curran to pay him €5,000 in compensation. She also gave the law firm a deadline of three months to “review its policy on reasonable accommodation and provide training to all of its employees in a staff management role”.

However, she concluded that Mr Gourley had not suffered a discriminatory dismissal and rejected further allegations of harassment and victimisation, including in connection with a grievance process that followed his dismissal.

Before bringing his WRC claim, Mr Gourley had written directly to the company alleging disability discrimination and a failure to provide reasonable accommodation.

However, a planned meeting in September did not go ahead after Mr Gourley was late in arriving, the WRC was told. The employee did not attend when it was rescheduled the following month, though email correspondence continued, the tribunal heard.

Mr Gourley said that when he got to the firm’s offices on the day of the September hearing he overheard a phone conversation between an employee he met at reception and the firm’s head of litigation, who was not identified in the decision published by the tribunal.

Mr Gourley’s case was that he could hear the head of litigation “talking angrily” about him through the phone line and heard him state: “No, I am not meeting him.” Soon after, he was informed by an employee of its HR department that the head of litigation had been “called away” and could not see him.

The head of litigation did not appear at the WRC during the proceedings, the tribunal noted. The company’s position was that Mr Gourley was 36 minutes late for a one-hour meeting.

In a later email, quoted in the company’s legal submissions, Mr Gourley wrote that he had been “humiliated” by Ms Allen at the August probationary meeting, claiming she “misled” him into thinking there would be a discussion of reasonable accommodation, an allegation denied by the firm in replying correspondence.

Mr Gourley wrote further that he had been humiliated again the following month in connection with coming to the office for the October grievance meeting and referred to “inconsistent and seemingly false reasons provided for not meeting me”.

The company wrote back stating that it denied its head of litigation “spoke angrily” about Mr Gourley and denying that any false reasons were given. Ms Flynn’s ruling was that Mr Gourley had not produced “any evidence of a causal link between the meeting not proceeding and his complaint of discrimination”.

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