Case 1803629/2022 · Employment Tribunal
Mr E Whiteley v Dugdale Limited — 2023
- Case reference
- 1803629/2022
- Decision date
- 5 January 2023
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Miller REPRESENTATION
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr E Whiteley
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningMr Whiteley was employed by Dugdale Limited as a compounder from 6 January 2020. The case concerned his absence on 12 May 2022 after he asked for leave to attend a Santander interview in Bradford. The tribunal found that he had been refused the day off, was then offered the chance to attend the interview and return to work afterwards, and did not return to work or notify the respondent that he would be absent. On his return, he said he had been feeling under the weather, and the tribunal accepted that he had said this at the return-to-work meeting.
The respondent dismissed him summarily on 24 May 2022. The tribunal found that the dismissal reason was conduct, not redundancy. It applied section 98 ERA 1996, the Burchell approach, and Iceland Frozen Foods. It accepted that the respondent genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct and that most of the factual investigation was reasonable, but held that the process was unfair because the claimant was not made clear from the outset that he was facing an allegation of insubordination, and he did not fully appreciate the gravity of the case he had to answer. The tribunal therefore upheld the unfair dismissal complaint.
On remedy, the tribunal found that the claimant contributed 100% to his dismissal because he deliberately decided not to attend work and had no good reason for doing so. It reduced the basic award to nil under section 122(2) ERA 1996 and the compensatory award to nil under section 123(6) ERA 1996. The tribunal also said that, even if the claimant had been told explicitly that the allegations were framed as insubordination and breach of confidence, there was a 100% chance he would have been dismissed anyway.
The wrongful dismissal claim failed. The tribunal held that the respondent was entitled to dismiss without notice in the circumstances because the claimant had consciously decided not to attend work, which it treated as going to the heart of the employment contract. The tribunal dismissed the breach of contract claim.
Claims and outcomes
2 findings recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | The tribunal found the dismissal unfair because the respondent did not make clear from the outset that the claimant faced an allegation of insubordination, and the claimant did not fully appreciate the gravity of the allegations. The tribunal nevertheless held that he contributed 100% to his dismissal and reduced both the basic award and compensatory award to nil under ss.122(2) and 123(6) ERA 1996. | Upheld | — | £0 |
| Wrongful dismissal | The tribunal held that the respondent was entitled to dismiss without notice because the claimant had consciously decided not to attend work on 12 May 2022, which was treated as a repudiatory breach/abandonment of the employment contract. | Dismissed | — | — |
Remedy
Monetary award- Total award
- £0
- across all upheld claims
- Basic award
- £0
- statutory, unfair dismissal
- Compensatory award
- £0
- compensatory remedy recorded
Legal tests applied
6 references- section 98 Employment Rights Act 1996
- Abernethy v Mott Hay and Anderson
- British Home Stores Ltd v Burchell
- Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd v Jones
- s.122(2) Employment Rights Act 1996
- s.123(6) Employment Rights Act 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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