Mr J Bennett v Mark Hughes t/a Barleywood Joinery — 2021

The claimant, Mr J Bennett, was employed by Mark Hughes t/a Barleywood Joinery as a joiner from 1 May 2016. The dispute centred on events of 12 September 2019. In the workshop, the claimant asked to leave two hours early to attend a meeting at his daughter’s school. The request was granted, but the respondent said that future pre-booked appointments would need to be taken as annual leave or unpaid leave. The tribunal found that the claimant became upset during that conversation and later went to the respondent’s office.

CCTV evidence from the office showed the claimant tapping the partition between them, moving towards the respondent, and then pushing him backwards so that he landed in his chair. The tribunal found that the respondent immediately told the claimant to leave the office and that the dismissal was based on the claimant’s aggressive conduct, not on the request for time off. The tribunal rejected the claimant’s case that he had acted in self-defence, finding that the CCTV did not support that account.

On the ordinary unfair dismissal claim, the tribunal held that conduct was a potentially fair reason under s.98(2)(b) ERA 1996 and that the respondent had a genuine belief, on reasonable grounds, that the claimant had committed misconduct. Although there was no pre-dismissal investigation or disciplinary process, the tribunal accepted that this was an exceptional case in which a reasonable employer could conclude that a fuller procedure would have been futile and would not have altered the outcome. Applying the s.98(4) ERA 1996 reasonableness test and the Burchell line of authority, the tribunal found that summary dismissal was within the range of reasonable responses.

The automatically unfair dismissal claim under s.99(3)(c) ERA 1996 was dismissed because the tribunal found that the claimant was not dismissed for taking parental leave. It noted that the claimant’s time off on 12 September 2019 had been granted and that the evidence pointed instead to dismissal for the workplace altercation. The claimant also pursued a section 38 Employment Act 2002 uplift for the alleged failure to provide written particulars, but because he did not succeed on the substantive claims, the tribunal made no award under section 38.