Mr M Hammond v Kuehne + Nagel Limited — 2023

The tribunal accepted that Mr Hammond was dismissed by reason of redundancy and that there was a genuine redundancy situation within the meaning of s.139 ERA 1996. The issue was whether the dismissal was unfair under s.98(4) ERA 1996, with the claimant arguing that the process was procedurally unfair in relation to events at the third consultation on 9 November 2022 and the handling of the meeting note.

Employment Judge Farrall found that the Respondent conducted a fair and reasonable redundancy exercise. The tribunal found that the Respondent gave warning, consulted affected employees, applied objective selection criteria, considered the claimant's score after representations about training certificates, and provided an appeal that was investigated thoroughly by Mr Booth. The tribunal also found that the Respondent offered suitable alternative employment in the form of the Late Shift Team Leader role.

The tribunal accepted that Mr Hammond honestly believed he had been offered and accepted the Day Shift Team Leader role at the 9 November meeting, and it accepted that his concern about the torn-up note was honestly held. However, the tribunal found it was not necessary to resolve exactly what happened at that meeting or with the note, because Mr Thompson had no authority to make such an offer, any misunderstanding was corrected later the same day, and the genuine offer had to be made to the employee entitled to first choice under the scoring matrix. The tribunal concluded that even if the wrong message had been conveyed briefly, that would not have made the process unfair.

The complaint of unfair dismissal was therefore dismissed. The judgment also states that there was no pleaded breach of contract claim, and that in any event such a claim would have been dismissed because Mr Thompson would not have been entitled to make the alleged offer. No monetary award was made.