Unfair Dismissal

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Our Employment solicitors are specialists in navigating and defending internal disciplinary charges, defending client’s reputations and making claims to the Employment Tribunal for unfair dismissal.

An employee who has at least two years continuous employment will have statutory protection from unfair dismissal.

A dismissal of a qualifying employee will be unfair unless:

• The employer can show that the reason (or principal reason) for the dismissal was a potentially fair reason. There are five potentially fair reasons for dismissal including capability, conduct, redundancy, statutory contravention or some other substantial reason. It is for the employer to establish that the dismissal was for a potentially fair reason.
• The tribunal finds that, in all the circumstances the employer acted reasonably in treating that reason as a sufficient reason for dismissal.

The role of the Employment Tribunal will be to review the fairness of the employer’s handling of the dismissal. As you will not be able to go to the Tribunal hearing with more evidence than you had at the original hearing, determined to clear your name, it is important your case is fully and properly put to the employer during the internal procedures before its takes any decisions.

The ACAS Code of Practice – Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures applies to dismissals for misconduct or poor performance, and must be taken into account by tribunals in deciding whether an employer has acted reasonably in relation to following a fair procedure and giving fair warnings prior to dismissal.

Dismissal for certain reasons is deemed automatically unfair and, in most cases, employees do not need a qualifying period of employment – such as being dismissed following a change of employer, making a protected disclosure or as a result of being discriminated or victimised.

If an Employment Tribunal finds that the dismissal is unfair, it can order the employer to re-engage or reinstate the employee or to pay the employee compensation.  The Tribunal may also make an award of costs in limited circumstances.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our expert employment lawyers can assist you by: –

1. Advising you on the legal position of the allegations against you and the action your employer is or has taken.
2. Advising you of what to expect from the disciplinary procedure, the rights you have and what outcome you might expect to achieve.
3. Help you prepare your case in defence of the allegations and collating the evidence you will rely upon in support.
4. If you are not satisfied with the outcome of the disciplinary hearing, we can advise you about making a claim in the Employment Tribunal.

We are able to offer very competitive rates and fixed fee packages for our work. All our initial advice is provided by qualified solicitors and offered for free, so please call us on 0844 800 9860 or request a call back through our website.

Appeal Against Dismissal

Our employment lawyers are experts in navigating employer’s internal disciplinary and appeal procedures. We are specialists in preparing for appeals including drafting the appeal documents and collating supporting evidence, as well as preparing you for the meeting and advising you on what tactical decisions to make.

Employees will often wish to raise an appeal against a dismissal either to get their job back and / or to clear their name. Where an employee wishes to appeal a dismissal they ought to inform their employer in writing, giving the full grounds of their appeal, within a reasonable period of time. Employers will often set a deadline for submitting an appeal and you shouldn’t necessarily be deterred from pursuing an appeal if you have missed that deadline. Providing you act reasonably, an employer ought to properly consider your appeal. Of course, this will depend upon the facts and circumstances.

If the employee pursues an appeal but the employer either refuses to hear the appeal or fails to hear the appeal in a reasonable manner; the Tribunal may find that the dismissal was unfair and, in accordance with the ACAS Code of Practice, the compensation awarded should be increased by up to 25%.

However, if an employee fails to pursue an appeal and later goes on to win a claim for unfair dismissal, the Tribunal may reduce the compensation awarded by up to 25% in accordance with the ACAS Code of Conduct.

Often, where an employee is dismissed by reason of misconduct they may need to make a very careful decision as to whether or not to appeal the dismissal. This is because it is possible for an employer to correct their previous failings and ensure that the dismissal is fair at the completion of the appeal but still leave the employee dismissed and without a job.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our specialist Employment solicitors can assist you by: –

1. Advising you on the legality of the original decision to dismiss.
2. Advising you whether or not it is in your interests to appeal, and if so, where to put the emphasis.
3. Help you to devise a strategy.
4. Drafting a persuasive appeal document and collating the supporting evidence.
5. Preparing you for the appeal hearing.
6. Assist you to bring a claim in the Employment Tribunal.

We are able to offer very competitive rates and fixed fee packages for our work. All our initial advice is provided by qualified solicitors and offered for free, so please call us on 0844 800 9860 or request a call back through our website.

Compensation in Unfair Dismissal Claims

Our specialist employment lawyers are experts in advising on what compensation an employee might expect to recover if they make a claim for unfair dismissal, drafting the Schedule of Loss and negotiating to achieve a settlement out of Court or at Tribunal.

Potential remedies in a successful claim for unfair dismissal include:

Order for reinstatement: This is an order that the employer shall treat the employee in all respects as if he had not been dismissed. In reality, orders for reinstatement are extremely rare. However, when an employee asks for reinstatement and the employer refuses, the Tribunal have a discretion to award additional compensation (either 26 or 52 weeks pay).

Order for re-engagement: This is an order that the employee be engaged by the employer in comparable employment to that from which he was dismissed or other suitable employment.

Where reinstatement or re-engagement are ordered, the employee will only be entitled to compensation for loss of wages to the date of reemployment taking place and will not be entitled to a basic award.

Tribunal Compensation

Basic award:

You will be awarded with one week’s pay for each year of employment with the employer. This is increased to one and a half week’s pay for each year of employment over the age of 41 and is deceased to half a week’s pay for each year under the age of 22.

The maximum amount of a week’s pay is currently £450 (effective from 1 February 2013) and the maximum number of years to take account of is 20.

The amount of the basic award must not be less than £5,000 where the Claimant was dismissed for certain protected reasons including ‘union related’ reasons, health and safety related or activities as a work place representative.

Loss of statutory rights:

This is designed to compensate you for the fact that when you gain new employment you will not have statutory rights such as protection from unfair dismissal until you have reached two years service. This award is normally equal to one week’s gross pay.

Compensatory award:

This element is designed to put you in the position that you would have been in, but for the dismissal. You can therefore claim:

1. Any expenses reasonably incurred in consequence of the dismissal and search for alternative work;
2. Any loss of employment benefits that you would have had but for the dismissal (e.g. health benefits, bonus schemes);
3. Loss of wages from date of dismissal (or end of notice period) to the date of either 1) finding a new job, or 2) date of the Tribunal hearing. The calculation will be based on net pay and will take into account any sums you have earned since your dismissal. The Employment Tribunal can also make an award for future loss of earnings if you have not found a job at the date or the hearing, or if you have found a job on lower pay than your previous job.
4. Any compensation may be increased by up to 25% if your employer unreasonably failed to comply with the ACAS Code of Conduct. But compensation may also be decrease by up to 25% if you unreasonably failed to comply with the Code.
5. There is a statutory cap applied to the maximum amount of compensation recoverable.  It is subject to a maximum of one year’s gross earnings or £76,574, whichever is the smaller.

Any compensation payable will be subject to your duty to mitigate your losses. In essence if the Tribunal believes that you did not make enough effort to find another job, it will reduce your compensation to what it believes is just and equitable in the circumstances.

The amount of compensation awarded may be reduced if the employer is successful in arguing either that your conduct contributed to the dismissal or if the Tribunal is satisfied that notwithstanding a procedurally unfair dismissal you would have been dismissed in any event.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our expert team of Employment Law solicitors will be able to assist you by: –

1. Drafting your Schedule of Loss for you, which will maximise your claim for compensation;
2. Advising you on the actual level of compensation that you are likely to recover in your individual circumstances and taking into account the factors which might lead a Tribunal to reduce the compensation;
3. Carrying out a costs/benefits analysis to enable you to make an informal decision on your options;
4. Undertake negotiations with your opponent to achieve a settlement outside of formal Court or Tribunal proceedings; and
5. Represent you at a formal remedies hearing in a Court or Tribunal.

Constructive Dismissal

Constructive Dismissal

Our Employment Law Solicitors are experts in identifying when an employee is entitled to claim constructive unfair dismissal, assisting in resolving work place disputes and pursuing claims for compensation in consequence of a constructive dismissal.

Constructive dismissal is when an employee resigns from their job because of the employer’s conduct. The employee will have to show that their employer breached an important term (express or implied) of the contract of employment and that they resigned promptly as a result.  Resignation is normally an irreversible step, and should only be taken with careful consideration and preferably with the benefit of expert advice.

A few examples of when an employer breaches an important clause of the contract include:

• Not paying wages,
• Demoting the employee without reason or notice,
• Unreasonably changing job content or hours of work,
• Discriminating against the employee, or
• Allowing a situation in which other employees harass or bully the employee.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our specialist Employment Law team can assist you by: –

1. Advising on the legality of your employer’s conduct
2. Helping you to resolve the problems you have, so that you don’t have to leave your employment
3. Advising you on the steps to take to protect your right to claim constructive dismissal
4. Advising you on the likely outcome of any claim for constructive dismissal
5. Assisting you in pursuing a claim in the Employment Tribunal for compensation as a result of being constructively dismissed.

We are able to offer very competitive rates and fixed fee packages for our work. All our initial advice is provided by qualified solicitors and offered for free, so please call us on 0844 800 9860 or request a call back through our website.

Dismissal Claims

Our Employment lawyers are specialists in resolving work place disputes and pursuing claims for compensation resulting from an unfair dismissal.

If you have been continuously employed for two years, you will automatically have statutory protection from unfair dismissal. If you have been employed for less than two years you may still be able to bring a claim but only if you can prove you were dismissed for what is known as an automatically unfair reason such as unlawful discrimination or whistle blowing. For further information on this, please see our discrimination at work page.

The dismissal of a qualifying employee will be treated as unfair unless: –

• The employer can show that the reason for the dismissal was a potentially fair reason.  There are five potentially fair reasons for dismissal: conduct, capability, redundancy, breach of a statutory restriction, and “some other substantial reason”; and
• The tribunal finds that, in all the circumstances including the size of the employer and its administrative resources, the employer acted reasonably in treating that reason as a sufficient reason for dismissal. This has been interpreted by the courts and tribunals as meaning that the dismissal must be both “procedurally” and “substantively” fair.

The Employment Tribunal will also consider whether the employer acted fairly in the procedure that they followed including whether they gave fair warnings prior to dismissal and whether they followed the steps set out in the ACAS Code of Practice on Disciplinary and Grievance Procedures (which applies to dismissals for misconduct or poor performance).

However, in the event that the Employment Tribunal finds that the dismissal was unfair because the employer did not follow a fair procedure, the Employment Tribunal can and will reduce compensation to a level which it finds to be just and equitable IF the employer can establish that the failure to follow a fair procedure made no difference on the outcome.

Wrongful dismissal is very different to unfair dismissal, and occurs where an employee is dismissed in breach of contract. The most obvious example of this is when an employee is dismissed without being given their contractual or statutory notice. Depending on the nature of the wrongful dismissal, you may be able to bring a claim for notice pay and/or an injunction and/or other compensation.

Our Employment Advice Services

Our solicitors are experts in handling unfair dismissal claims. We can help you by: –

1. Assisting you to navigate your employer’s internal appeal procedures and the tactical decisions that need to be made.
2. Advising you on whether your dismissal is likely to be fair or unfair and what level of compensation you might expect to recover from a claim in the Employment Tribunal.
3. Assisting and representing you in a claim to the Employment Tribunal for re-instatement, re-engagement and/or compensation.

We are able to offer very competitive rates and fixed fee packages for our work. All our initial advice is provided by qualified solicitors and offered for free, so please call us on 0844 800 9860 or request a call back through our website.