Manor Oak (PMG) Ltd v Kelly EATS/0070/08

unfair dismissal | misconduct | investigation | admission of guilt

The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that an employer did not unfairly dismiss an employee when it failed to investigate in detail the nature of his misconduct in circumstances where he had admitted his guilt.

Mr Kelly was a service technician at a garage. The employer issued him with a final written warning arising out of the incorrect wiring of an engine to a van. He was advised that the written warning would remain on his record for 12 months. Three months later, he passed a car during its MOT test when it should in fact have failed. It was found at a disciplinary meeting that the car should have failed its MOT as a result of a fault that had arisen from repairs that Mr Kelly had made to the car. He was dismissed on the ground of negligence. He appealed, accepting responsibility for the damage to the car but arguing that the dismissal was an extreme response because he had been a long-serving employee and his negligence was not deliberate. His appeal was unsuccessful.

An employment tribunal found that the dismissal was unfair. The tribunal's reasons included that the employer had not carried out as much investigation as was reasonable because it did not take time to clarify the nature of the defect.

The EAT overturned the decision. Mr Kelly made clear admissions accepting responsibility for having caused the defect in the car, not noticing the defect and having certified it as passing its MOT test when he should have failed it. These were acts of misconduct. In these circumstances, the onus was discharged from the employer of showing that it genuinely believed that the employee had committed misconduct, that it had reasonable grounds on which to hold that belief and that it had carried out a reasonable investigation before reaching its conclusion. Once the admissions were made by the employee in response to the employer's questioning of him, it plainly was not required to take its investigations any further. It was, in particular, not required to investigate the seriousness of the defect.

Case transcript of Manor Oak (PMG) Ltd v Kelly (Microsoft Word format, 103K) (on the EAT website)

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