It is well established that an employee has a right to appeal the outcome of a disciplinary hearing. We look at some recent caselaw which raises the question of whether a successful appeal following the disciplinary appeal procedure can reverse what was originally a dismissal.
Facts
Mr Patel (the claimant) started working for Folkestone Nursing Home Limited (the respondent) as a Care Assistant in 2008. In 2014, he was charged with:
- Sleeping on duty; and
- Falsifying the records of residents by pre-recording that they slept through the night.
Mr Patel attended a disciplinary hearing on 28 March 2014. His defence was that he was sleeping during his break and that pre-recording records was a common and accepted practice. The outcome letter found both allegations proved and he was dismissed with immediate effect for gross misconduct. But his appeal overturned the dismissal. The appeal outcome letter referred only to the first allegation. As it didn’t address the second one allegation, it was unclear whether this finding had been overturned. He wasn’t happy and did not return to work.
He lodged a claim for unfair dismissal (among other claims) in the employment tribunal (ET). The ET held that the successful disciplinary appeal did not revive Mr Patel’s contract of employment. The employment appeal tribunal (EAT) overturned this decision, stating that Mr Patel ended up not dismissed, so he couldn’t bring a claim for unfair dismissal.
He took the case to the Court of Appeal (CA).
Decision
The CA held that the effect of a contractual rights to disciplinary appeals is that if successful, the appeal revives the contract and extinguishes the original dismissal.
This decision confirms that where there is a contractual appeal procedure and an employee succeeds in using it to overturn the original sanction of dismissal, their employment is revived and the original dismissal vanishes.
It is widely believed that the position is the same for a non-contractual appeal procedure (i.e. contained only in a handbook), however the law is unclear on this point.
Tactics for employers and employees
For employers, they can use their disciplinary appeals process as a safety net to rectify what may otherwise have been an unfair dismissal. Employees have a good incentive to appeal even if they don’t want their job back – it can cost them up to 25% of their compensation if they win an unfair dismissal case.
For employees, it is advisable to appeal in order to avoid a 25% reduction in compensation but should they do this when they don’t want their job back? Yes. They should say that they are only asking their employer to overturn the decision about guilt, to clear their name or for an apology, but not to re-instate them. If the employee does get their job back, they get it with back-pay to the date of the dismissal.
An employer faced with this attempt by an employee to have their cake and eat it should refuse to hold disciplinary appeals on that basis. It is a no-win situation for them.
The employer could even try granting the appeal and take a chance on reinstating tactically. After all, they know the employee doesn’t wish to return to work and they might resign, potentially leaving them without a tribunal claim, though this tactic is untested.
Just to be clear, a dismissal that is upheld remains a dismissal at the original date. An employee who is up against a time limit can’t argue that the date of dismissal was the date of the appeal. And an employee can’t have the best of both worlds by putting in a tribunal claim and then appealing – if the appeal is successful, the unfair dismissal claim will fail.
Finally, if an appeal results in a finding of guilt but demotion and even a demotion is out of proportion with the allegation, then this provides the right to resign and claim constructive unfair dismissal.
By Zahid Reza
Image used under CC courtesy of Reading Tom