The Court considered the role of an Employment Tribunal in assessing an employer’s classification of conduct as gross misconduct, justifying summary dismissal.
Held: If an issue of conduct is being considered upon the facts of the case that is before the Industrial Tribunal, it should not venture into expressions of its own opinion on whether the issue is really one of capability, thus distorting the matter from not an assessment of what the employer did on a reasonable basis, which is the task of the tribunal, but rather as to whether the tribunal had their own personal view that what had happened was reasonable.
Neil LJ said: ‘where an employer has an established disciplinary procedure and the employer follows that procedure both in the classification of the matters to be investigated and the method of investigation, an Industrial Tribunal has to be very careful before it makes a reclassification. A reclassification of the facts may make it difficult to see how a reasonable employer might reasonably respond to those facts.’
Ward LJ said: ‘The Tribunal in fact found that the reason for dismissal shown by the employer related to the capability of the employee, not to her conduct. In my judgment, it was entitled so to find. What it was not entitled to find was that the employer ought to have approached the question of dismissal on that basis. In treating this as a capability case where a warning to improve was appropriate before dismissal, the Tribunal was guilty of substituting its classification of the reason for dismissal for the employers and substituting its decision as to the right course to adopt for that of the Council. In so doing, it erred.’
Judges:
Neil, Ward LJ
Citations:
[1996] EWCA Civ 561
Links:
Jurisdiction:
England and Wales
Cited by:
Cited – Clancey Ltd v Akram EAT 20-Oct-1997
. .
Cited – Sterzo v London Borough of Lewisham EAT 2-Oct-2001
. .
Lists of cited by and citing cases may be incomplete.
Employment
Updated: 31 October 2022; Ref: scu.140428
