A new client was referred to Employment Practice and Law by his accountant to seek employment law advice, having already delegated the dismissal of an employee to his Operation Manager. This Case Study demonstrates both the importance of following correct employment procedures and the value of acting promptly when employment issues arise.
The original instruction for dismissal was given well before the employee had completed a year’s continuous service, although the instruction was not acted upon until the employee had some thirteen months service. This resulted in the employee now being able to submit an unfair dismissal claim (having the necessary 12 months qualifying service). Matters were then compounded by a failure to follow any form of disciplinary process or to give a right of appeal.
In such a situation, and without compelling evidence that the employee was guilty of significant misconduct such as to warrant a reduction in tribunal compensation, it only remained to negotiate an out of court settlement which was helped by the (ex) employee’s failure to produce much evidence of efforts to “mitigate loss”, that is to say, find another job.
Had the employer dismissed before the employee had completed a year’s service, he would have been safe from the unfair dismissal claim, though still vulnerable to the claim of Age Discrimination which the employee had also chosen to claim.
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