(sitting alone) Mr Brian Christie v Meat Limited T/a McIntosh Donald — 2017

The claimant, Mr Brian Christie, had long service with the respondents and was working as Lairage Supervisor when an unannounced Tesco audit took place on 3 August 2016. CCTV showed a lairage operator, Mr Spence, handling a sheep in a way the tribunal regarded as a breach of animal welfare standards. The claimant was positioned a short distance away, looking towards the area, and the respondents treated his failure to intervene as misconduct. He was suspended, investigated, dismissed without notice, and his appeal was rejected.

The tribunal applied section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996 and the Burchell approach. It accepted that Mr Napier and Mr Anderson genuinely believed the claimant ought to have seen what was happening but had not done so, and it found that the investigation based on the CCTV was within the range of reasonable responses. It did not accept Mr McNaughton's later view that the claimant must have seen the incident and chosen to do nothing. The tribunal also noted concerns about the missing or incomplete minutes from the investigation, disciplinary and appeal meetings, and said those procedural issues added to its unease, although it did not make a separate finding of procedural unfairness.

On the merits, the tribunal held that the claimant's conduct was at most a momentary lack of attention and that no reasonable employer would dismiss in those circumstances. It also took account of the comparison with Mr Baillie, who had intervened in the later incident only after auditors drew it to his attention, although that comparison was not decisive. The unfair dismissal claim therefore succeeded, and the wrongful dismissal / notice pay claim also succeeded because the respondents were not entitled to summarily dismiss the claimant for repudiatory breach. The tribunal awarded a basic award of £10,418.25 after a 25% reduction for contribution, a compensatory award of £24,602.78 after the same reduction, and a total unfair dismissal monetary award of £35,021.03 with a prescribed element of £2,972.69 covering 4 February to 4 April 2017. It also awarded £6,688.56 for 12 weeks' notice pay and £1,200 reimbursement of tribunal fees, bringing the total ordered sum to £42,909.59.