The ex-principal of the fee-paying Leinster Senior College has lost a challenge to his sacking after he shredded work diaries when his employer put him under investigation for running a “rival” grinds business.
Karl Hegarty had pursued a complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against the operator of the school, LSC Education Corporation Limited, challenging his sacking for gross misconduct on 20 January 2023.
Mr Hegarty was found by a Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) adjudicator to have “entirely undermined [his] credibility” by destroying the diaries after stating they contained a note of a conversation with his employer in which he got “verbal permission” for the venture.
His claim was rejected in a decision published today, following a series of hearings in 2023 and 2024.
The school’s barrister, Andrew King BL, appearing instructed by McMahon O’Brien Tynan Solicitors, submitted that Mr Hegarty was “dismissed for gross misconduct for setting up a rival school”, actions the school management considered “underhanded and dishonest” and a “flagrant breach” of the contract of employment.
Mr Hegarty’s barrister, Patrick Marron BL, instructed by Patrick V Boland & Son Solicitors, submitted that his client had permission to “provide private career guidance counselling” and that his client had “marked the conversation in his diary”.
He submitted that his client had been providing “student support services” at a premises owned by his father. He said Mr Hegarty had approached three teachers at Leinster Senior College who were giving grinds, but “did not benefit financially” as the teachers were being “paid for the grinds directly”.
The owner of the school gave evidence that he knew nothing of Mr Hegarty’s business until November or December 2022, when it was reported to him by other staff.
Mr Hegarty, denied that he was in competition with Leinster Senior College and maintained his employer knew about the business since May 2022, when he registered the company.
His evidence to the WRC was that his venture was “adding to the profile” of his employer and increasing its enrolment.
The employer relied on a contract clause that barred Mr Hegarty from engaging in “any business or employment which is similar or in any way connected to or competitive with the business of the company”. Mr Hegarty said he was “never presented with a contract” and that he had refused to sign one with a non-compete clause.
The owner told the WRC that senior staff of the school raised concerns about its “viability” given that there was “a rival business under the same principal”. He denied that Mr Hegarty had indicated that he would be running a grinds business when it was put to him.
The tribunal heard that Mr Hegarty was suspended on full pay for an investigation on 21 December 2023, with the school’s owner deciding to deal with the matter personally.
Mr Hegarty offered to take down the website for his business and cease trading the following day, his legal team submitted.
At a meeting following the suspension, the school owner said that when he asked Mr Hegarty to explain how he was not in competition with his employer, he got “no satisfactory answer”.
The witness added that Mr Hegarty told him his work diary entries were written “in code” and could not be understood.
The owner said that having asked Mr Hegarty to provide him with the work diaries on Friday 13 January 2023, the complainant “shredded” them. The destruction of the material was complete by the following Monday, he said.
The tribunal noted “no disagreement between the parties that the complainant destroyed the work diaries after being requested to provide them to the respondent as part of the investigation”.
Mr Hegarty was dismissed on 20 January 2023, with his dismissal upheld in an internal appeals process in April that year.
In his decision, adjudicator Conor Stokes wrote: “The diaries might have exonerated the complainant, or indeed may have provided a damning account of his activities; the point is that we will never know.”
“The complainant insists on being dealt with fairly, but [was] not dealing fairly with the respondent,” he added.
Noting Mr Hegarty’s evidence that he had refused to sign a contract containing a non-compete clause, Mr Stokes concluded that Mr Hegarty was “explicitly aware of what was expected of him”.
The fact Mr Hegarty had destroyed his diaries when they were sought for the investigation “entirely undermines the complainant’s credibility” and put dismissal on the table as an option for his employer, Mr Stokes wrote.
“His outright failure to provide information regarding his income further undermines his credibility,” the adjudicator also wrote.
He concluded that dismissal “amounted to an appropriate sanction” in the case and dismissed Mr Hegarty’s complaint.
