Solicitor Ammi Burke went on a “frantic rant” after receiving an email inviting her to lunch, the Labour Court has heard.
A former senior partner at law firm Arthur Cox said Burke exhibited “the worst case of victim mentality I have ever witnessed”.
Burke, from Castlebar, Co Mayo, was dismissed by Arthur Cox Solicitors of Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, in November 2019 and is now on her third challenge to that dismissal.
She had previously taken cases against her dismissal at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC), and there were two judicial reviews arising out of those.
She has now begun the case against her dismissal in the Labour Court, which is the appeal court for the WRC.
Giving evidence to the court, Gráinne Hennessy, a senior partner in the finance department, said she had sent a lunch email invitation on January 14th, 2019, to two new associates who had joined her department. It was intended as a celebration of them becoming associate solicitors.
She had realised that evening as she was leaving that she had not invited Burke, who was the third new associate within the banking and finance sector. The omission was inadvertent, as she had not worked with her before, Hennessy told the court.
She sent a two-line email to Burke at 6.27pm inviting her too. Hennessy told the Labour Court that within five minutes Burke was standing over her desk in a physically intimidatory manner.
“She was offended, disgusted and felt that her work was valued less than the two guys who were included in the invitation,” she said.
Hennessy said she apologised repeatedly and stated that she hadn’t meant to cause offence, but “nothing was landing”.
“This was the worst case of victim mentality I have worked with in my career. Nothing was going to undo the offence. I have never witnessed anything more shocking in a work context.”
Hennessy said she resolved after that not to work with Burke again, but did not raise it with HR because Burke had only been made an associate two weeks before.
She didn’t want a permanent record against her. “I found the conduct very bizarre, but I wanted to see how things would play out. I did not want a black mark against her so early in her career,” she said.
Hennessy said she was convinced that Burke had behaved herself as a trainee to fit in and ensure that she got a job at Arthur Cox, but once she was made an associate solicitor “the shackles came off, and it kept going until November”.
Burke denied acting aggressively towards Hennessy in their exchange over the email. Burke said Hennessy appeared to take offence when she (Burke) raised the fact that she had been originally excluded from the lunch.
Hennessy said she did not dispute that Burke had been given good reviews as a trainee solicitor, but that was expected of Arthur Cox trainees who were recruited from the best law students in Ireland.
She told Burke that she was not a “star performer”. “I don’t question your ability as a lawyer; you had huge potential, but you are so lacking in every other respect,” Hennessy said.
Arthur Cox managing partner Geoff Moore said the decision to summarily dismiss Burke was made by him, following consultation with other partners in the firm.
Moore said he had met with senior partners and HR on November 9th, 2019, and had come to the conclusion that the relationship between Burke and the firm had been “completely and utterly sundered at that point in time”.
He ruminated over that weekend and returned on Monday convinced that he had made the right decision to dismiss her.
He had opted against a disciplinary process because he had come to the conclusion that she was “incapable of seeing any other perspective, incapable of compromise or finding a sensible middle ground on issues like this”.
Moore said he took “no joy whatsoever” in sacking Burke and the ex gratia payment of €70,000 was an attempt to set her up so she could find another job.
Burke was told that the firm would do all it could to help her get a job elsewhere, but she chose not to go down that route.
“From our perspective, I believe then, and I believe now, that we made the best decision we could,” he said.
He said the almost seven years of litigation that Burke was now engaged in against Arthur Cox over her dismissal vindicated the original decision to sack her.
The case continues.