Company found woman's emails to male colleagues were tantamount to bullying

A female accountant who told a male colleague in an email ‘sometimes I think you are pure evil’ has had a €37,500 unfair dismissal award made to her last year overturned.

The WRC last year determined that Ms Andrea Kiss was unfairly dismissed after concluding that the dismissal “was disproportionate” to the findings that her email to a male colleague was ‘very inappropriate’".

However, following an appeal by Ms Kiss’s former employer, global logistics company, United Parcel Service CSTC Ireland Ltd against the award and the WRC finding, the Labour Court has found that Ms Kiss was not unfairly dismissed and overturned the award.

Ms Kiss - who worked at the company’s Citywest offices in Dublin - was sacked for gross misconduct after UPS Ireland found her actions were tantamount to bullying.

UPS Ireland deemed Ms Kiss’s actions constituted bullying after finding that the content of lengthy emails to two male colleagues was “highly offensive, inappropriate and unacceptable”.

The Labour Court found that Ms Kiss’s final emails to the two male colleagues “were clearly highly objectionable in content”.

The Labour Court found that the emails “demonstrated a contempt for the employer’s efforts to deal with the difficulties which had endured over a significant period”.

The Labour Court stated that throughout, UPS Ireland “displayed levels of leniency and patience in what were very sensitive and difficult matters”.

The Labour Court found that UPS came to the conclusion that the matters could not and would not be let lie by Ms Kiss was an understandable conclusion on their part.

The Labour Court found that “it is clear that the dismissal was essentially a last-straw and reluctant action within a very unfortunate set of events and circumstances”.

On behalf of UPS Ireland, Conor O’Gorman of IBEC told the Labour Court that the dismissal resulted wholly from Ms Kiss’s own conduct and submitted that her dismissal was both substantively and procedurally fair.

Mr O’Gorman stated that it was clear that Ms Kiss had feelings for Mr X and was unsure if he felt the same.

She explained how she approached Mr X in June 2016 and Mr X responded by saying he had a girlfriend.

Mr O’Gorman stated that the language used by Ms Kiss in her subsequent emails to Mr X was highly inappropriate and so extreme that no employee, under any circumstances, should be expected to tolerate it.

Mr O’Gorman stated that the emails from Ms Kiss to Mr X constituted bullying.

Mr O’Gorman stated that Ms Kiss wrote in emails to Mr X :

“you might fool certain people... by playing the victim”, “sometimes I think you are pure evil”, “if I wanted to take revenge on you for ruining my life I would have done that a long time ago”, “The way you couldn’t hide your attraction to me was really sweet and you can never take that away from me, so I do want to thank you for that.”

Mr O’Gorman stated that Ms Kiss expressed no remorse for her actions or regret for having sent the emails

However, in response, Ms Kiss told the Labour Court that her dismissal “was entirely disproportionate and unfair”.