Case 6016811/2024 · Employment Tribunal
Mr S O’Neil v J. Murphy & Sons Limited — 2025
- Case reference
- 6016811/2024
- Decision date
- 19 August 2025
- Jurisdiction
- England & Wales
- Judge
- Employment Judge Dunlop Representation
- Venue
- Manchester
Parties
2 namedClaimant
Mr S O’Neil
Respondent
Key findings
Tribunal's reasoningThe claimant was dismissed without notice after a serious overnight rail incident in which a large cable spool fell from a trailer during works he was supervising. The tribunal recorded that the respondent relied on conduct as the potentially fair reason for dismissal, and the claimant accepted that this was a conduct dismissal.
The tribunal found that the respondent had a genuine belief in misconduct, had carried out a reasonable investigation, and had followed a procedure that was fair overall despite some points that would have been better handled differently. It concluded that dismissal was within the band of reasonable responses in a safety-critical setting, and that the unfair dismissal complaint was not well-founded.
Claims and outcomes
1 finding recorded| Claim type | Issue or finding | Outcome | Protected characteristic | Award |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Unfair dismissal | Recorded from the judgment. | Dismissed | — | — |
Legal tests applied
4 references- Burchell test
- section 98 Employment Rights Act 1996
- band of reasonable responses
- ACAS Code of Practice
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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