Unfair Dismissal

At Darlingtons, we have a highly experienced and competent team of unfair dismissal solicitors and lawyers specialising in employment law generally and unfair dismissal law and claims specifically.

If you are an employee, based in London, and you feel that you have been unfairly dismissed, please call us today for immediate initial free advice or complete our unfair dismissal contact form.

Commonly, unfair dismissal claims at the Employment Tribunal are won and lost based on:

• The contract of employment/disciplinary procedures and their application
• Interpretation as to whether an employer has acted “reasonably”, both in terms of complying with procedure and on the substance
• Application of the technical statutory definition of unfair dismissal law
• The maximum compensation for unfair dismissal is now over £50,000. Employees are entitled to make a claim after one year of employment.

Unfair dismissal claims generally cover situations where employers dismiss the employee, but also where the employee resigns and claims Constructive Unfair dismissal, whereby the employee asserts that the employer has fundamentally breached the employment contract, such that the employee has the option to treat such fundamental breach as tantamount to having been dismissed.

Grounds for an unfair dismissal claim

A dismissal will be automatically unfair if it is for one of a number of prescribed reasons, including, but not limited to:

• whistleblowing,
• health and safety activities
• pregnancy

The burden will be on the employer to establish that the dismissal is fair and potentially fair reasons include but are not limited to:

• The conduct of the employee
• Capability including ability, sickness or other long-term absence
• Redundancy
• Some other substantial reason which is a “catch all” final line of defence available to the employer

Constructive dismissal

Constructive dismissal is a form of unfair dismissal. It occurs when an employer commits a 'fundamental breach' of the contract of employment inconsistent with a continuing employer/employee relationship.  Such a breach entitles the employee to resign but the burden of establishing the fundamental breach is on the employee. Constructive dismissal might arise, for example, if the employee's pay or hours are reduced without agreement.

The Qualifying Period

In most cases (with the exception of some of the automatically unfair dismissal reasons) employees cannot sue for unfair dismissal unless they have at least one year's continuous service. An unfair dismissal claim can be brought by an employee of any age - the previous prohibition on employees over 65 bringing unfair dismissal claims has been abolished.

What can an employee claim ?

An employee who alleges unfair dismissal can claim:

• Compensation.
• Reinstatement.
• Re-engagement.

Compensation for unfair dismissal can include both a basic award (currently £10,500 maximum), and a compensatory award (currently £66,200 maximum). The basic award is worked out on the same basis as redundancy, ie it depends on the employee's age, length of service and pay, and is calculated using the following starting point:

• Half a week's pay for every year the employee was under 22.
• One week's pay for each year in which the employee was between the ages of 22 and 40.
• One and a half week's pay for each year in which the employee was 41 years old or more.

The calculation of a week's pay is subject to a statutory maximum, currently £350 per week, and no more than 20 years of service can be taken into account.

Alternatively, an employee might ask for either reinstatement (to their old job, as though they had not been dismissed), or re-engagement (to a different job with the same employer, or a successor or associated employer). In either case, their employment must be treated as continuous - ie as though they had not been dismissed at all.