EAT UNFAIR DISMISSAL – Reasonableness of dismissal
The Claimant was dismissed for ill-health. He was entitled, while in employment, under an income protection scheme to be paid 66 per cent of his salary while fully unable to work and a lesser proportion if partially unable to work. He was absent ill for a series of substantial periods and for several months before the dismissal, at the time of which he, supported by his own doctors, said that he was fully unable to work. The Respondent accepted that if the Claimant was unable to work within the terms of the scheme they would not have dismissed him; the Employment Tribunal found that in these circumstances dismissal fell outside the range of reasonableness. In effect the Respondent was seeking to assert that the Claimant was not sufficiently unwell to fall within the terms of the scheme but sufficiently unwell to justify dismissal.
The thrust of the appeal was that the ET had substituted their own view of what was reasonable; The ET more than once used the word ‘unreasonable’ to describe the Respondent’s actions; but they had given themselves a correct direction as to the law; their Judgment should be read as a whole; their use of the word ‘unreasonable’ shortly after a correct self-direction should be taken to mean ‘outside what a reasonable employer would have done’.
Appeal dismissed.
Judges:
Jeffrey Burke QC
Citations:
[2012] UKEAT 0511 – 11 – 1107
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 03 November 2022; Ref: scu.462928