Mr C Sampson v Lawtech Group Limited — 2021

The claimant brought claims for automatic unfair dismissal, wrongful dismissal and unlawful deduction of wages. The tribunal found that on 18 June 2018 he took 150 minutes to complete asbestos awareness training, scored 93.33%, and signed a contract that referred to the respondent's handbook and disciplinary procedure. The handbook listed sleeping during working hours as gross misconduct, and the contract reserved the right to dismiss without procedure for those with insufficient service.

On the dismissal issue, the tribunal found that the primary reason for dismissal was that the claimant was asleep during an important management meeting about the Brewster and Malting site, including health and safety matters. It accepted evidence from the respondent's witnesses that he was snoring loudly and had to be prodded to wake up, and it preferred that evidence over the claimant's account that he had been taking an authorised break. On that basis, the tribunal held that the dismissal was not automatically unfair.

The wrongful dismissal claim also failed. The tribunal held that sleeping during the meeting was conduct that justified withholding notice, describing it as gross misconduct under the respondent's policy and as a repudiatory breach of contract. For the wage claim, the tribunal did not accept that the claimant attended the site on 22 June 2018, noting that his name did not appear on the site attendance record and that he had already been dismissed the previous day. Even if he had attended, the tribunal found that he was not authorised to do so and therefore was not entitled to payment for that day.

After dismissing all three claims, the tribunal noted the earlier deposit order and found that the claimant had acted unreasonably in pursuing each allegation. It therefore ordered that the £750 deposit be paid to the respondent.