Nursing home worker who washed laundry for non-resident awarded €12,000 after sacking

A housekeeping manager has been awarded €12,000 for being unfairly sacked over cleaning laundry for an elderly man who lived near the nursing home where she worked.

Upholding Claire Butterly’s complaint under the Unfair Dismissals Act 1977 against Carechoice Ltd, a Workplace Relations Commission official said it was a “huge stretch and a ridiculous exaggeration” to accuse her of fraudulent behaviour.

The tribunal heard the firm, which took over the nursing home in Trim, Co Meath, in late 2018, had already tried to get Ms Butterly to step down as head of housekeeping with a €5,000 buyout offer after more than a decade working there.

Carechoice’s position was that the housekeeper had been ordered to stop providing the service but kept doing so in return for cash – arguing it was a breach of trust.

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Ms Butterly’s legal team said the home had provided laundry and cleaning services to a neighbouring village of standalone housing units for the elderly.

She had been in charge of rostering for this, and when the company told her to end the arrangement upon the takeover, the residents of the unit came to her.

“They were elderly vulnerable people who had no other options,” she said.

She told the residents she would do the cleaning for a short while, after work, adding she “did not charge” them.

Ms Butterly said her sister took on the cleaning in March 2019 and that she was paid by one man, Mr X, up to November that year – charging him €15 for a small bag, “more if it contained bed linen”.

Mr X would leave an envelope with cash for her at reception, she said. Ms Butterly said she “did not need the money” and “did it to help the elderly residents”.

The tribunal was told the units were privately-owned but that residents would often transition into the adjoining care home.

Carechoice’s HR director, who gave evidence, said the firm had “no responsibility” for the residents of the adjoining units.

The management discovered the continuing arrangement when its HR director saw Mr X dropping off a bag of laundry in February 2020 at the centre’s reception, the WRC heard.

Mr X told him he had “no family who could do his laundry” and that it would be “done for him in the home”, the HR director told the tribunal.

The HR director said reception at the centre told him no laundry had been done for Mr X when he asked again a week later but that Ms Butterly told him when he questioned her that she was doing laundry for residents of the standalone units and some cleaning.

The HR director said he accepted she was “doing a good turn for the residents” but told her it was not allowed and suspended her.

He said he had concerns about reputational damage for Carechoice over cash payments, and called her actions “dishonest”.

She was sacked following an investigation, disciplinary appeals process and appeal, the hearing was told.

Denying unfair dismissal, the company’s solicitor, Siobhán McGowan of Alastair Purdy and Company, said Ms Butterly was found to have committed gross misconduct.

She said an investigation had found the complainant had breached four sections of the company’s policy, including “abusing company time, materials or equipment”; “engaging in private work during company time”; “deliberately falsifying company records” and “dishonesty, fraud or intention to defraud the company”.

Eoin O’Connor BL, appearing for the complainant, instructed by Lumi Fahy of Bowman McCabe, said his client – whom the tribunal heard had worked from the age of thirteen – had been treated “very harshly” by the firm.

He said it was notable that before the laundry dispute arose, Ms Butterly had turned down a €5,000 offer to step down as head of housekeeping and added that his client’s dismissal was both substantively and procedurally fair.

Adjudicating officer Máire Mulcahy wrote that Ms Butterly’s evidence had been “convincing” and that she was “mindful” of the uncontested evidence that the complainant had been offered the buyout before being dismissed.

“She was helping an individual resident not touting for, or running, a business. Yes, she took liberties, disregarded the respondent’s revised arrangements, failed to report her provision of laundry services to the director of nursing, and, more significantly, acted improperly in failing to record these transactions which could have led to an exposure for the respondent, but to characterise her actions as fraudulent is a huge stretch and a ridiculous exaggeration,” the adjudicator wrote.

“She was not depriving or cheating the company or Mr X of anything,” she added.

The sanction of dismissal was “disproportionate”, the disciplinary hearing “perfunctory” and the company’s appeals process “marked by carelessness towards the complainant with a disregard for her rights”.

Ms Mulcahy accepted the complainant, who took up a part-time job for less pay a month after her appeal was rejected, had been “hindered” in finding new work by the “shock and distress” caused by her sacking.

However, she wrote that this “does not supplant her obligation to find employment” and mitigate her loss of earnings – which amounted to €41,416 between September 2020 to February 2022.

Upholding the complaint, Ms Mulcahy ordered Carechoice to pay Ms Butterly €12,000 in compensation.