Case 3201836/2019 · Employment Tribunal
Mr D Chapman v Tesco Stores Ltd — 2020
- Case reference
- 3201836/2019
- Decision date
- 27 May 2020
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge O’Brien
- Venue
- East London Hearing Centre
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr D Chapman
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant was dismissed following the respondent's Supporting Your Performance process. The tribunal accepted that the respondent's reason for dismissal was related to capability, and found that the decision-maker acted on her own knowledge and beliefs rather than as a means of carrying out another manager's alleged wish to remove the claimant.
The tribunal found the dismissal substantively unfair because the decision-maker did not have reasonable grounds for the central finding on which dismissal was based. The claimant's evidence that he had completed the required next steps by the disciplinary hearing was not challenged, and the appeal did not cure that issue.
The tribunal also found that the claimant had not performed all duties of his role between April 2018 and January 2019, and that a significant part of the delay in completing the required steps was due to his failure to take opportunities to catch up and prioritise the work. It held that this culpable and blameworthy conduct contributed 80% to his dismissal, so the basic award and any compensatory award would be reduced by 80%.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | The tribunal held the unfair dismissal complaint succeeded, with basic award and any compensatory award to be reduced by 80%. Remedy was to be considered at a future hearing. | Upheld | — | — |
Legal tests applied
15 references- s.98 ERA 1996
- s.98(4) ERA 1996
- Abernethy v Mott, Hay and Anderson
- Alidair Ltd v Taylor
- Polkey v AE Dayton Services Ltd
- range of reasonable responses
- Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd v Hitt
- Iceland Frozen Foods Ltd v Jones
- West Midlands Co-operative Society v Tipton
- Taylor v OCS Group Ltd
- Davies v Sandwell MBC
- s.118 ERA 1996
- s.122(2) ERA 1996
- s.123(1) ERA 1996
- s.123(6) ERA 1996
Official outcome judgment PDF
Gov.uk primary recordThe official judgment PDF on gov.uk contains the tribunal's outcome, reasoning, and any remedy details. Where this page does not yet show extracted outcomes for every claim, use the PDF as the authoritative source.
Published on gov.uk under the Open Government Licence v3.0.
How we got this data
Case essentials (reference, date, judge, venue, country, claim categories) are extracted from the structured metadata gov.uk publishes alongside each decision. Parties and monetary figures are extracted from the judgment PDF text. Key findings and per-claim outcomes require a second extraction pass that is not yet complete for this case — until then, the primary source linked above is the authoritative record. See full methodology.
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