Hill v Arriva Southern Counties Ltd

An Employment Tribunal’s reasons are legally adequate where, read as a whole, they identify the material instruction, state the essential factual findings and reasoning, and enable the parties and an appellate court to understand why the claim succeeded or failed. The Tribunal need not address every possible construction of the evidence expressly where its findings and the surrounding context make its conclusion clear.

In an unfair-dismissal case founded on refusal to obey a reasonable instruction, adequate reasons may show that the instruction was within the employee’s role, reasonable, and that refusal amounted to misconduct for which dismissal was a reasonable response.

The claimant, a store person, was summarily dismissed after refusing to use a revised computer process to raise work orders, enter employee names and hours, and save and close the orders. The employer treated the refusal as gross misconduct and upheld dismissal on internal appeal.

The Employment Tribunal at Ashford dismissed her unfair-dismissal claim under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996. It found that she had refused a reasonable, company-wide instruction after receiving training, and that dismissal was both substantively and procedurally fair.

She appealed on the sole ground that the Tribunal had failed to identify what instruction she had refused, particularly the meaning of “raise work orders”, and therefore could not decide whether it was reasonable.

1. Appeal dismissed unanimously. The Employment Tribunal’s reasons were adequate and disclosed no error of law.

2. Applying the reasons principle in Meek v City of Birmingham District Council [1987] IRLR 250, the EAT held that the Tribunal had expressly found the terms of the instruction. The claimant was required to raise work orders, add employee names and hours to the system, and save and close the work order.

3. The Tribunal did not have to set out and reject expressly every possible meaning of “raise work orders”. Read as a whole, its reasons showed that it rejected the claimant’s contention that she was being required to undertake maintenance planning or duties beyond her job. Its findings that the instruction was applied nationally, accompanied by training, and followed by other employees supported the limited construction: operating the computer system by completing work orders from existing information.

4. The reasons made the Tribunal’s decisive conclusions clear. It found a particular instruction; found it reasonable; found the refusal to be gross misconduct; found dismissal to be a reasonable response; and found the procedure fair. Although fuller reasons could have been given, the reasons enabled both parties and an appellate court to understand why the unfair-dismissal claim failed. The dismissal of the claim therefore stood.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: dismissed the claimant’s appeal and upheld the Employment Tribunal’s dismissal of the unfair-dismissal claim.
• Employment Tribunal (Ashford): dismissed the claimant’s claims, including her claim under section 98 of the Employment Rights Act 1996; no citation was stated.