She said the relationship with Mr Y “broke down” in June 2019 and that she was told by the senior director in the firm and her former partner to “go home”.
Her barrister, Tom Kelly BL, who appeared instructed by David Burke & Co Solicitors, submitted an email from the firm to his client stating that Ms Quinlan’s employment had been ceased “due to downturn in our business” from 25th September that year.The email stated a date of “28th August 2020″, but Ms Quinlan said she had received the message “a day after” her inquiry to the firm after her wages were not paid as she expected on the 28th or 29th of October that year.
Mr Kelly argued his client’s dismissal was “wholly unjustifiable” and that it “did not reflect a work-based event”. “He went on to outline a background of personal difficulties, where the complainant, who had been in a relationship with his son, was party to a formal end of the relationship,” Ms Doyle wrote.In her decision, Ms Doyle wrote that the company had relied on “two vastly different reasons” for the termination of employment and that she had nor received either “a record of resignation ... or an acknowledgment of resignation”.
The firm “fell seriously short of best practice and respect for the complainant both as an employee and [an] associated family member”, Ms Doyle wrote.