Mr G Palmer-Brown v DTSN Limited t/a Fordwich Arms Heard — 2022

Mr Palmer-Brown was a shareholder and director in the respondent pub and restaurant business and was responsible for front of house, finances, payroll and the day-to-day running of the business. The tribunal heard evidence about cash takings from a customer on 26 January 2020, a bill that was later voided and then recreated on the Revel system, a CCTV outage on 27 January 2020, and earlier Stripe and iZettle payments being paid into the claimant's personal account. It also considered the claimant's grievance allegations about suspension, confidentiality and the way the disciplinary process was handled.

Applying section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Burchell test, the tribunal found that Mr Smith and Mrs Smith genuinely believed the claimant had committed misconduct, that they had reasonable grounds for that belief, and that the investigation was as much as reasonable in the circumstances. The tribunal rejected the claimant's complaints of unreasonable delay, lack of evidence, inadequate notes, lack of impartiality, predetermination, and unfair handling of the grievance and appeal. It preferred the respondent's evidence on the disputed facts and found the claimant's evidence about the text-message issue unsatisfactory.

The unfair dismissal claim was dismissed. The tribunal said that, even if it had been wrong on liability, the claimant would in any event have been found to have wholly contributed to his dismissal, so compensation would have been reduced by 100% under section 123(6). On the breach of contract claim for notice pay, the tribunal held that the misconduct proved amounted to a repudiatory breach of contract, so the respondent was entitled to dismiss summarily without notice. The unlawful deduction from wages claim was withdrawn during the hearing and was recorded as dismissed upon withdrawal.