Louise Windram v Rankin Travel Ltd — 2022

Louise Windram worked for Rankin Travel Ltd as a travel consultant from 28 May 2019 until her dismissal on 2 September 2021. The tribunal dismissed the respondent’s strike-out application and then considered a single unfair dismissal claim. It found that the primary reason for dismissal was the respondent’s belief that she had breached her contract by carrying out work for another business without prior written consent.

The tribunal found that Ms Windram had signed a term of employment stating that she could not be employed or engaged for any other entity without the employer’s prior written consent. It accepted that she carried out beauty treatments for Le Beauté Clinic during her employment, including offering microneedling at £45 per session, and found that WhatsApp messages showed only that she had told Ms Humpage she was looking for a job while furloughed, not that permission had been given. It also found that there had been no reduction in contractual hours when salary was reduced, and that the claimant had misunderstood the effect of the 20% salary reduction.

Although the tribunal accepted that Dr Rankin genuinely believed misconduct had occurred and had reasonable grounds for that belief, it held that the dismissal was unfair because the respondent failed to follow a fair procedure. In particular, the claimant was not properly informed of the case against her, was not invited to a disciplinary meeting, and was not given an opportunity to respond before the decision was made. The tribunal referred to section 98(4) ERA 1996, the Burchell test, and the band or range of reasonable responses in reaching that conclusion.

On remedy, the tribunal found that if a fair procedure had been followed, dismissal would still have been inevitable, so it applied a 100% Polkey reduction. It also found that the claimant caused and contributed to her dismissal by working for another business without written permission, so the basic and compensatory awards would in any event have been reduced by 100%. The result was that any award was extinguished. The tribunal noted that an ACAS uplift point was academic, although it said that if the issue had remained live it would have applied a 20% uplift for the procedural failure.