A Claimant’s obligation to mitigate their losses in Unfair Dismissal Complaints

In this episode of KC Connect, Ibec experts Declan Thomas and Terry Mac Namara discuss the obligations on a Claimant to mitigate their losses when taking a complaint for unfair dismissal to the WRC.

The common law rule of mitigation of damages applies to compensation for unfair dismissal. This places a requirement on a Claimant to demonstrate an effort to mitigate their financial loss by way of attempting to secure employment following their termination. In considering a claim under the Unfair Dismissals Acts, 1977 the Court must have regard to Section 7(2)(c) of the Act. In accordance with this provision, amongst others, the Court will consider the amount of compensation which is just and equitable in all of the circumstances, taken into account the measures adopted by the Claimant or, as the case might be, the Claimants failure to adopt measures to mitigate their loss. 

Where the Court is satisfied that a Claimant has failed in their obligation to mitigate their loss it may so determine that the appropriate redress is compensation limited to four weeks’ pay in accordance with section 7(1)(c)(ii) of the Act.

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