Supreme Court: School employee who lost bullying case may not have to repay €100,000 award

About this case:

• Judgment:
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In what was described as an unusual and complex case, Mr Justice Donal O’Donnell urged the parties to reach their own agreement – emphasising that he would be slow to order the appellant to pay costs or to repay the €100,000 already released to her.

Background

Ms Úna Ruffley had been employed as a Special Needs Assistant (SNA) in St Anne’s School at the Curragh County Kildare for more than ten years, ‘without notable incident’. The school was set up ‘exclusively for children with intellectual disabilities’ from the age of 4 up to 18years of age, having been founded by KARE – an organisation of parents of children with physical and intellectual disabilities.

The dispute before the Supreme Court arose in response to an incident in 2009, for which Ms Ruffley was subject to disciplinary action. In September 2009, Ms Ruffley was with a pupil in the school’s sensory room, which was used ‘to develop the sensory perception of pupils by exposing them to a variety of experiences such as music, vibration, movement, light and colour’.

The room could be locked from the inside, and the Court heard that it was ‘normal practice’ for SNA’s to lock the door ‘both to prevent other pupils entering and disrupting the session and to prevent children, some of whom were very active, from running out of the room’. Such children were often described as “runners”.

Ms Ruffley was in the room working with a young pupil described as ‘an extremely active child who suffered from ADHD’ who was known to be a “runner”.

Somewhat unusually, he fell fast asleep, and consequently Ms Ruffley went out and phoned the teacher Ms Rachel Bramhall, to ask for instructions. She was told to leave the child asleep, and if he had not awoken within 20 minutes to bring him back to the class. The teacher however being concerned contacted the headmistress, Ms Dempsey, who went to the room where she discovered that the door had been locked from the inside, and only gained entry on her third attempt.

Disciplinary action

Disciplinary procedures were instigated in response to Ms Ruffley’s locking of the door to the sensory room, which eventually led to Ms Ruffley’s actions being considered by the school Board.

The headmistress, Ms Dempsey gave her account of the matter to the Board, the members of which initially wanted Ms Ruffley to be ‘instantly dismissed’.

In the High Court, the trial Judge found that the ‘extreme, if not, downright intemperate, reaction of the Board to whatever they were told, suggests as a matter of probability, the account given by Ms. Dempsey to the Board of the history of the matter was almost certainly untrue, highly biased, coloured, and grossly and unfairly damnified’ Ms Ruffley.

Accordingly, ‘to say that the conduct of Ms. Dempsey in relation to the lead up to this Board meeting and what happened at it was a departure from all the norms of natural justice is a feeble understatement’

although Ms Ruffley’s claim ‘was framed with a heavy emphasis on fairness of procedures, (and indeed it was conceded that the procedures were flawed, even botched)’, it was not directed to a declaration of invalidity of a process or any sanction – and was instead a claim grounded in bullying, for which Ms Ruffley sought to recover ‘substantial damages’ because of the ‘serious impact on her mental health’.

The trial judge concluded that the matters set out above constituted bullying, pursuant to the definition of bullying found in the Code of Practice Detailing Procedures for Addressing Bullying in the Work Place, (Declaration) Order 2002 (S.I. No. 17/2002)

In the High Court, Ms Ruffley was awarded damages to the tune of €255,276.39.

Appeal

The School was granted a partial stay on damages, and accordingly had to pay €100,000 to Ms Ruffley pending the appeal.

The Court of Appeal overturned the finding of the High Court in a 2:1 majority, having found that the High Court’s finding’s stretched the definition of ‘bullying’ beyond breaking point.

In the Supreme Court, all seven judges were concurring in their judgment that the finding of the Court of Appeal should be upheld – that the difficulties in this case were not ‘limited to the findings of fact or the legal definition of bullying’.

It was important that Ms Ruffley had succeeded in this case at first instance; and that it was accepted that the School’s treatment of Ms Ruffley was entirely improper.

While the matters alleged did not give rise to a successful claim for bullying, ‘the degree of judicial disagreement’ demonstrated that this case was by no means clear-cut.

As such, it was emphasised that Ms Ruffley ‘would have been justified in coming to court to have it determined that the procedures applied to her were flawed’.

In those circumstances, Justice O’Donnell stated that he ‘would be very slow’ to order Ms Ruffley to repay to the defendant the sum of money paid as a condition of obtaining the partial stay, or to pay costs.

Urging the parties to ‘reach their own agreement’ on these matters – failing which, the Court would hear further submissions.