EAT Unfair Dismissal : Reasonableness of Dismissal – Employee refused to return to work following illness if he was to remain managed by his Divisional Officer, against whom he had unsuccessfully raised grievances. He was otherwise fit to resume. At a meeting, he said he did not wish to leave the service of USDAW and would do anything. The General Secretary said he would inquire if any alternative work was available: what was in mind was a clerical job at the Manchester Central Office. Though saying he would do so (and thereby indicating it was materially relevant to the fairness of dismissal from the Claimant’s current post) the GS did not make any such inquiry, but told C at a dismissal hearing 4 days later there was no alternative post. The ET thought the dismissal (agreed as being for SOSR) was itself within the range of reasonable responses, but said that the procedure was unfair, and held the dismissal unfair. An appeal on the basis that the ET had asked as two separate questions what was in fact one – whether the employer had acted fairly or unfairly having regard to the reason for the dismissal, due regard being had to equity and the substantial merits of the case – was rejected. Read fairly, that was what the ET was determining. It had separated consideration of the procedural aspects from whether a dismissal for the reason given was within the range of reasonable responses because that was the way in which the parties had asked it to view the issues, and this was not a reason for concluding it had impermissibly separated the two. An argument that it would have been futile to offer a clerical job in the Central Office because it would not have been accepted, and hence the ET could not permissibly have reached the finding it did, was rejected: the focus had to be on what the employer did, and this employer had actually thought it important to assure C that other job possibilities would be explored. It did not find that the employer explicitly or impliedly thought that C would not have accepted a job if one had been offered. Finally, a reasons challenge was rejected.
Langstaff P J
[2014] UKEAT 0557 – 12 – 0104
Bailii
England and Wales
Employment
Updated: 04 December 2021; Ref: scu.526260