A landmark Court of Appeal ruling in favour of a GP accused of unfair dismissal has cleared up the confusion over statutory dismissal procedures for employers.

The tribunal found that the claimants had been fairly dismissed on the grounds of misconduct but in an appeal the claimants argued their dismissal was automatically unfair because there had been a delay of several months in hearing the appeals against the decision to dismiss. The Court of Appeal judged that the completion of the steps of a statutory dismissal procedure is separate from the compliance with the general requirements of the statutory procedures. Failure to comply with a general requirement of a procedure does not constitute failure to complete it and thus does not render a dismissal automatically unfair.

However, if an employee faces an unreasonable delay in any part of a statutory procedure, they can choose to complete the procedure but claim an increase in compensation or refuse to comply with any further requirement of the procedure. If the employee chooses the latter, the procedure will not be completed, but the noncompletion will be attributed to the employer.

Davies Arnold Cooper

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