An employer unfairly dismissed an employee when it did not postpone proceedings due to his sickness absence, held the ET
In the case of Oise v Spring & Co Solicitors Ltd, an assistant solicitor was instructed by his supervisor, the organisation’s director, to obtain updates from a client about an ongoing case which was being investigated by an insurer.
The client complained that he was being chased and was unhappy about it, which led to the employee sending a threatening email about ending the retainer that was in place.
The email was sent without any discussion with, or approval from, the employee’s supervisor. The employee was also trained on how to handle such situations and should have known that this wasn’t the appropriate way to deal with the issue.
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The employee refused to write to the client, retract the threat and apologise, in an attempt to protect the relationship with them.
As a result, the employer commenced a gross misconduct process. The employee was then signed off sick for two weeks by his GP.
The employer did not believe that the employee’s sickness was genuine so proceeded to hold a disciplinary hearing without him and reached a decision to dismiss.
The ET concluded that the employee had been unfairly dismissed. This was because of a defective procedure; the employer had ‘unreasonably’ pressed ahead with a disciplinary hearing despite the employee submitting a fit note as evidence he was not fit for work.
The employer was instructed to pay £1,177 in compensation.
In the judgment, the judge highlighted that, had a fair process been followed and the disciplinary hearing postponed until the employee was fit for work (or until reasonable adjustments could be made, e.g. asking for written submissions or arranging a welfare meeting), there would have been fair grounds to dismiss him over his threat to the client about ending the retainer.
This led the judge to reduce the compensation by 50% due to the employee’s ‘contributory fault’.
It further stated that the organisation was acting reasonably when it instructed the employee to apologise to the client, as it was important for them to protect their ongoing relationship.
For answers to question on fair dismissals, visit BrAInbox today where you can find answers to questions like Can I dismiss an employee even though their previous warning has expired?
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