Discipline
In Kulkarni v Milton Keynes Hospital NHS Trust and Secretary of State for Health [2009] IRLR 829 CA, the Court of Appeal held that NHS doctors subject to disciplinary proceedings are entitled to be represented at any disciplinary hearing by a qualified lawyer instructed by their medical protection organisation.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has overturned an employment tribunal finding that an employer was motivated by an employee's gender when it failed to follow its disciplinary process when it dismissed him, following an allegation of rape made against him. The EAT held that, although tribunals must be alive to the fact that stereotypical views of male and female behaviour exist, there must be evidence for a tribunal to conclude that an employer has been motivated by those views.
The Employment Appeal Tribunal 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.
In Airbus UK Ltd v Webb [2008] IRLR 309, the Court of Appeal held that Diosynth Ltd v Thomson did not establish a rule of law that spent warnings must be ignored for all purposes. On the facts, where a spent warning was not part of the reason for the dismissal, but the basis for the employer's refusal to exercise leniency in respect of later gross misconduct, neither Diosynth nor the wording of s.98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996 rendered the dismissal necessarily unfair.
In Davies v Farnborough College of Technology [2008] IRLR 14, the EAT held that a dismissal that involved a breach of step two of the statutory dismissal and disciplinary procedure was automatically unfair, even though a full and proper appeal had been heard. The tribunal was wrong to find that the appeal "cured" the defect in the original hearing. However, it was clear that a dismissal would have occurred even if the procedure had been properly followed, so the compensatory award was set at zero.
In Software 2000 Ltd v Andrews and others EAT/0533/06 the Employment Appeal Tribunal held that where a procedurally unfair dismissal has not been rendered fair by the operation of s.98A(2) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal must nevertheless consider if there is evidence to suggest that a fair procedure might have led to dismissal, thereby justifying a percentage reduction in compensation under Polkey.
In Airbus UK v Webb EAT/0453/06 the EAT has held that where an employee was dismissed for gross misconduct, but would not have been dismissed but for the fact that he had an expired final written warning on his record, the dismissal was unfair. The result of the expiry of the warning was that he was entitled to be treated as though he had no disciplinary record at all.
This week's case of the week, provided by Watson Burton, covers injunctions to restrain disciplinary action.
In Metrobus Ltd v Cook EAT/0490/06, the Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that an employment tribunal did not err in increasing the amount of unfair dismissal compensation by 40% where an employer had failed to follow the statutory disciplinary and dismissal procedure.
In Chairman and Governors of Amwell View School v Dogherty EAT/0243/06, the Employment Appeal Tribunal holds that an employment tribunal was not entitled to admit as evidence in unfair dismissal proceedings recordings of a disciplinary panel's private deliberations.
Employment law cases: HR and legal information and guidance relating to discipline.