The Supreme Court has recently given some helpful guidance to employees and employers as to what type of behaviour can constitute bullying in the workplace.
While this is not the first case on bullying to come before the Supreme Court, there has been some uncertainty about where the boundary lies between treatment in the workplace which an employee finds unfavourable and treatment which constitutes bullying.
Facts of the case
Ms Ruffley was a special needs assistant in a school for over ten years. Following an incident in the workplace, she was subjected to a lengthy and flawed disciplinary process, which lasted for over one year. Ms Ruffley claimed that her employer’s treatment of her amounted to bullying and harassment and claimed damages for the impact to her mental health. The question before the Courts was whether unfair procedures which led to an unfair result could amount to bullying.
High Court & Court of Appeal decision
The High Court found in favour of Ms Ruffley and awarded her €255,276 for psychiatric injury and loss of earnings. The trial judge looked at the definition of bullying under the statutory code of practice, which states that
“workplace bullying is repeated inappropriate behaviour, direct or indirect, whether verbal, physical or otherwise, conducted by one or more persons against another or others, at the place of work and/or in the course of employment, which could reasonably be regarded as undermining the individual's right to dignity at work”.
In assessing the facts of the case, the High Court found that the treatment of Ms Ruffley was inappropriate and had been persistent for over a year.
The Court of Appeal overturned this decision and found that at worst this was a case of a poor disciplinary process but it was not a case of repeated offensive behaviour which was intended to damage Ms Ruffley’s dignity at work. The matter was then appealed to the Supreme Court.
Correct Test to be applied
The Supreme Court dismissed Ms Ruffley’s claim. The Supreme Court applied the test set out in the earlier case of Quigley v Complex Tooling & Moulding Ltd [2009] 1 I.R. 349 where the Court had found that in order to be successful in a claim for damages the bullying must be:
- repeated,
- inappropriate and
- undermining of the dignity of the employee at work
The Supreme Court found that on the facts of the case there was no repeated behaviour which undermined Ms Ruffley’s dignity. It was not enough that the unfair process was made up of a number of different steps, unless it can be shown that each of those steps in themselves was inappropriate and undermined her dignity.
In terms of the test for what is inappropriate, the Court noted that that it is not a legal test but rather whether the behaviour is inappropriate at a human level.
In assessing the third limb of the test, the Court found that while a lack of fair procedure is not a trivial matter it does not necessarily undermine human dignity unless there is an indication that the process was conducted in bad faith. In this case, while the disciplinary procedure was clearly flawed there was no indication that Ms Ruffley’s employers were malicious or personally offensive in their treatment of her throughout the process.
Balancing the importance of disciplinary process and employees rights
The Supreme Court emphasised the importance of not blurring the lines between a breach of procedures and a claim of bullying. The Supreme Court did not wish to encourage a situation whereby disciplinary procedures were avoided by employers for fear of a claim of bullying from the disgruntled employee. Mr Justice Charleton noted that it is important for employees to be allowed to correct and instruct their employees in order for the workplace to function.
High threshold for future bullying claims
The Supreme Court noted this case would provide a benchmark for future bullying cases and the threshold for future claims has been set very high. Incidents which might typically be considered to constitute bullying may no longer satisfy this test. While the Supreme Court was sympathetic towards the emotional distress caused to Ms Ruffley, due to the seriousness of the allegation of bullying the Supreme Court has acknowledged that the “test for bullying is of necessity to be set very high”.
Ruffley v The Board of Management of St Anne’s School [2017] IESC 33