Mrs Lee Smith v Samri Pharma Ltd — 2021

The claimant worked for Samri Pharma Ltd from 3 May 2016 until her dismissal took effect on 7 March 2021. The respondent said it dismissed her for conduct matters including failure to obtain a qualification, persistent lateness and failure to check expiry dates. The tribunal found that the letters said to invite her to disciplinary hearings in 2016 to 2018 were not in fact received, that there was no disciplinary process at those times, and that there was no evidence of lateness or expired medical products.

The tribunal accepted that the claimant had been told in late 2016 that she needed to obtain a qualification and that the respondent later paid for a Buttercups medicine counter assistant course. It found that she started the course in March 2017 but did not complete it, in part because of family difficulties and then the pressures of the Covid-19 period. The tribunal found that a November 2020 meeting was a discussion about completing the course, not a disciplinary hearing, and that the respondent later issued a new fixed-term contract even though it knew the claimant had already been employed continuously since May 2016.

Applying section 98 ERA 1996 and the Burchell approach, the tribunal held that there was no misconduct and that dismissal for failure to complete the course was premature. It found that the real reason for termination was Mr Samri’s mistaken belief that the new contract allowed him to end the employment on one week’s notice without following any procedure or giving reasons, and it upheld the unfair dismissal claim.

The wrongful dismissal claim was also upheld. The tribunal held that the claimant’s statutory notice rights were not displaced by the later contract, that she had over four years’ continuous service, and that she was entitled to four weeks’ notice under section 86 ERA 1996. She worked and was paid for one of those weeks. The judgment did not assess a monetary remedy; it listed the case for a later remedy hearing.