EAT Unfair Dismissal: Compensation
The Claimant was a teacher who had realistically entertained high hopes of promotion to a Headship, but who as a result of the behaviour of the Respondent Education Authority and School Governors towards her would never now work again as a teacher. She appealed that an award of compensation to her was ‘grossed up’ from an intended net figure to allow for the impact of taxation on the overall award not by asking what sum it was necessary to pay to her such that after it had been taxed the net figure would remain, but instead by asking what tax was payable on a sum equal to the net figure, and paying her that sum in addition to the net, all of which would then be subject to tax. The result of the latter approach (which the Employment Tribunal adopted) was erroneously to lower the sum payable to the Claimant to a level below that of the net the Employment Tribunal had decided she should be entitled. The appeal was allowed: the wrong approach had been adopted.
At the same time, a Preliminary Hearing was held in an appeal by the Respondents, raising a number of complaints about the assessment of the award at both an adjourned Review Hearing and a subsequent hearing held to reconsider aspects of the compensation awarded at the Review Hearing. All complaints were rejected, except for two, which were thought arguable at a Full Hearing of the Appeal Tribunal: the Respondents’ argument that to assess the chance of the Claimant becoming a Head at 100% was manifestly excessive, and clearly took no proper account of the chances, and that the multiplier used in assessing the sum by way of pension already accrued in service by the Claimant was too high, since the Employment Tribunal had wrongly assumed that it would have been payable for the first time at age 65, whereas it was payable without reduction from the age of 60.
Langstaff P J
[2015] UKEAT 0257 – 14 – 1002
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 30 December 2021; Ref: scu.547609