EAT UNFAIR DISMISSAL
Reasonableness of dismissal
Reason for dismissal including substantial other reason
Employment Tribunal found that an employer had dismissed an employee because he had asserted at a meeting (after a long history of lack of co-operation) that he would not be back to work, and had irretrievably lost confidence in his employer. In response, the employer considered it too had lost confidence in the employee, and dismissed him. The Employment Tribunal did not criticise the employer for any action prior to dismissal, and accepted that the reason was SOSR of a kind of justifying dismissal. It held it unfair because it considered that dismissal without a further meeting or further discussion was necessarily unfair, and that a meeting was required by the ACAS code, but never stopped to think what a meeting might achieve given that it found that the loss of confidence was irretrievable, and that the code had nothing to say in respect of SOSR dismissals. Held that it was a mistake not to apply the words of s.98(4) ERA, and that in the circumstances a further hearing could have achieved nothing.
Lanstaff P J
[2012] UKEAT 0128 – 12 – 1907
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Leading Case
Updated: 01 November 2021; Ref: scu.465812