In person For the v Mrs. A. Beattie, Litigation Manager (Croners) — 2020

The tribunal found that on 13 April 2018 there was a heated exchange about unlabeled boilers, during which the claimant swore out of frustration. It accepted that there had been no significant conduct or performance issues before then, but found that the claimant was nevertheless culpable to some extent in how he responded. On 16 April 2018, TW told him that his conduct was “totally unforgivable” and to “clear your desk”. The tribunal held that, taken in context, those words would be understood by a reasonable employee as a dismissal. It also found that the later emails, meetings and continued payment did not amount to a withdrawal of that dismissal by agreement.

The tribunal held that the respondent had shown a potentially fair reason for dismissal, namely conduct, but the dismissal was unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996. It accepted that TW had a genuine belief in misconduct based on what he had seen, but found that there had been no investigation before the dismissal decision. The claimant was not told that the meeting was disciplinary or that he had a right to be accompanied, and the tribunal concluded that both the procedure and the decision to dismiss fell outside the range of reasonable responses. It rejected the respondent’s case that the claimant had resigned and did not accept the suggestion that the dismissal had been engineered to avoid redundancy.

On remedy, the tribunal calculated a basic award of £1,210.83 before a 25% reduction for contributory conduct, producing £908.13. For the compensatory award, it allowed 58 weeks of net loss at £334.57 per week, added £350 for loss of statutory rights, and deducted £1,806.57 already paid by the respondent. It made no future loss award, found the claimant had reasonably mitigated his loss, made no Polkey reduction, and applied a 25% ACAS uplift for failure to follow the code. It then reduced the result by 25% for contributory conduct, arriving at a compensatory award of £16,826.71 and a total award of £17,734.84 subject to recoupment.