The employee, in this case, was dismissed after spending nearly £100,000 on her company credit card over a ten month period, taking her spending well over the £5,000 per month limit. The employer argued that in doing so she had negligently caused significant financial damage to the company. She had not kept any records of the consumables she ordered, nor could she explain her authority for the excess expenditure, which was not supported by business usage. The items purchased had never been received into stock.
The Employment Tribunal found her dismissal to have been automatically unfair as step 2 of the statutory dismissal procedure had not been complied with. There were also procedural failings, but the Tribunal did not, however, rule on whether or not these flaws would, in any event, have rendered the dismissal unfair.
Moreover, while the Respondent had reasonable grounds to believe that the Claimant had engaged in misconduct, it had not carried out a reasonable investigation. The Tribunal found that Claimant did not cause significant financial damage to the respondent on grounds that its turnover was so large and awarded her compensation.
The Employment Appeals Tribunal overturned this decision and remitted the matter to a fresh Tribunal. The Tribunal‟s procedure was flawed as the Employment Judge invited written responses to an issue relating to a part of a document that had not been put in evidence, apparently doing so without reference to the lay members of the tribunal. This occurred nearly seven months after the hearing had ended. Moreover, the judgment not issued until eight months after the nineteen-day hearing had ended.
The EAT also held that there was no basis in the evidence for the Tribunal finding that the employer had failed to adhere to either step 1 or step 2 of the statutory dismissal process. It further held that, as the findings did not support the conclusion that the Respondent had failed to carry out a reasonable investigation, the Tribunal had substituted their own view.
The picture was confused, however. The EAT could not be sufficiently confident in the Tribunal's findings to enable them to determine whether or not the Claimant's dismissal was unfair, as the Tribunal's judgment contained too many contradictions and patent errors.
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