EAT Unfair Dismissal : Reasonableness of Dismissal – UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Procedural fairness/automatically unfair dismissal
An employee was dismissed following a disciplinary hearing at which the dismissing officer formed a view of her misconduct which was not based on reasonable grounds after a reasonable investigation. She appealed. The officer who heard the appeal asked critical questions which the earlier officer had not, and had an assurance from technicians that he did not have, but which she permissibly regarded as conclusive. The email containing the advice was not before the Employment Tribunal.
There were a number of procedural shortcomings in the procedure adopted by the employer. Nonetheless, the Employment Tribunal found the dismissal not unfair.
On appeal, a ground that the Employment Tribunal had asked not whether the dismissal was fair but whether it would have happened anyway if the unfairness had not existed was rejected, as was an argument that the appeal procedure was necessarily unfair because of earlier failings, a ground that submitted it was perverse to accept the appeal officer’s evidence of the contents of the critical email without producing it, and grounds arguing it was wrong of the Employment Tribunal to find dismissal fair given that there had been relevant breaches of the ACAS Code and of the employer’s disciplinary policy.
Appeal dismissed.
Langstaff P J
[2015] UKEAT 0005 – 15 – 0408
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 06 January 2022; Ref: scu.554875
