Charles Scott and Partners Consulting Engineers Ltd v Hamilton: EAT 9 Aug 2011

EAT Redundancy : Fairness – Redundancy dismissal. Failure to consult but meetings with employee subsequent to decision to dismiss. Decision on appeal taken by same persons as had decided to dismiss, namely all four of the employers’ directors. Tribunal’s finding of unfair dismissal overturned on appeal. Tribunal had carried out an over-minute investigation of the scoring process and substituted their own view of what would have been an appropriate procedure. They had proceeded (erroneously) on the basis that all criteria required to be objective and that two of the criteria were discriminatory (although the Claimant did not claim he had been discriminated against). They found that it was essential that appeals be heard by different persons from those involved in the original decision to dismiss, had made an unexplained finding that the dismissal was substantively unfair as well as procedurally unfair, had failed to explain their decision not to make a Polkey deduction in circumstances where the issue plainly arose, and had failed to consider and find what would have been the outcome had a fair procedure been followed. On appeal, judgment of Employment Tribunal overturned and case remitted to a fresh Tribunal for a rehearing.

Judges:

Lady Smith

Citations:

[2011] UKEAT 0072 – 10 – 0908

Links:

Bailii

Jurisdiction:

England and Wales

Cited by:

CitedSunderland City Council v Brennan and Others EAT 2-May-2012
EAT PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Contribution
PRACTICE AND PROCEDURE – Disclosure
(1) An employment tribunal has no jurisdiction to determine claims for contribution under the Civil Liability . .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.

Employment

Updated: 20 September 2022; Ref: scu.445645