The Claimant in this case had been employed by Sainsbury’s for around 26 years before being summarily dismissed for gross misconduct. At the time of dismissal he was a Regional Operations Manager, one of the more senior posts in the company. He was responsible for 20 stores. The Claimant’s claim was for wrongful dismissal. This is different from unfair dismissal. Wrongful dismissal is a claim in essence for breach of contract. The question for the court was whether the Claimant had committed gross misconduct so as to justify summary dismissal (and thereby deprive him of sums otherwise due to him under his contract).
The Employment Appeal Tribunal has recently issued judgment holding that a ‘refusal’ to permit rest breaks under the Working Time Regulations (WTR) can exist where the employer fails to make provision for such breaks, even where the employee does not expressly request them.
A recent Employment Appeal Tribunal (“EAT”) decision provides some welcome (and rare) good news for employers. The traditional position in relation to disciplinary action, clearly set out in the relevant authorities, is that an employer cannot rely on an expired disciplinary warning when deciding the penalty for a particular offence – the expired warning should be treated as never having existed.
Where an employment tribunal finds that an employee has been unfairly dismissed, the “primary” remedy which the tribunal can grant (if the employee wishes it) is to order that the employer re-employ the employee in their old role, or re-engage them in a new role, and pay them the wages they would have earned since the dismissal. While the employer cannot actually be forced to rehire the employee, there will be a further significant financial penalty if he does not.
The issue as to employment status within the so called gig economy has again been raised in a recent Employment Tribunal claim, following the earlier claim by Uber workers.
