Mr G Shannon v Williams Haulage Limited — 2020

Mr Shannon was employed as Operations Director from 3 December 2018 under a contract giving six months' notice. The tribunal recorded that he was moved to deal with problems at Sandycroft and later asked to run Deeside as well, while also dealing with working-time monitoring, Employee A's incident, missing items, and holiday issues. He was suspended on 19 February 2020, dismissed for gross misconduct on 23 March 2020, and his appeal was not upheld.

Applying the gross misconduct guidance discussed in Sandwell and West Birmingham Hospitals NHS Trust v Westwood, the tribunal rejected the respondent's reasons for summary dismissal. It found that Mr Shannon had followed the instruction about Employee C's holiday carry-over, that he had taken steps on driver working time before his duties expanded, and that any later failure to issue memos was due to lack of time rather than wilful refusal. It also found that he attempted to investigate Employee A and was told by Croner that there was nothing further the company needed to do.

The tribunal accepted there had been some failure to manage missing items, but held that, in context, it was not deliberate wrongdoing or gross negligence and did not amount to gross misconduct either individually or cumulatively. It further found that the respondent had artificially augmented the seriousness of the allegations to avoid paying notice pay. The claimant's contractual notice pay was £26,070, but the award was capped at £25,000 gross. A 25% uplift under s.207A TULR(C)A 1992 was refused because the tribunal considered the investigation, disciplinary hearing, accompaniment rights, and appeal were sufficient and the delay was not unreasonable.