Dronsfield v University of Reading (Unfair Dismissal: Reasonableness of dismissal)

Where an employee’s contract or governing statute specifies the conduct constituting good cause for dismissal, the employer and the Employment Tribunal must apply that specific test. It cannot be replaced by the broader concept of gross misconduct.

Under section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Tribunal must assess the reasonableness of every material aspect of the dismissal, including the investigation, disciplinary process, findings and sanction. An investigation report may be unfairly deficient if significant favourable conclusions are omitted, even though the final report honestly reflects the investigator’s revised views. The issue is objective fairness, not merely the investigator’s integrity.

The Claimant, an associate professor, was dismissed by the University of Reading after admitting a sexual encounter with a student whose dissertation he continued to supervise and assess without reporting the relationship.

The University’s governing Statute XXXIII and the Claimant’s contract permitted dismissal only for specified good cause, including conduct of an immoral, scandalous or disgraceful nature incompatible with the duties of employment. The Employment Tribunal rejected his unfair-dismissal claim, treating that wording as equivalent to gross misconduct.

The appeal concerned the interpretation of the statutory dismissal criterion, the alteration of the investigation report, and whether the Tribunal had adequately considered the career-ending consequences of dismissal.

1. Appeal allowed and case remitted. The Employment Tribunal had erred in law on the statutory dismissal criterion and the investigation issue. The matter was remitted to a freshly constituted Tribunal for a complete rehearing.

2. The University was required to decide whether the Claimant’s conduct amounted to conduct of an immoral, scandalous or disgraceful nature incompatible with his office or employment. The words were to be judged by contemporary standards and read as a whole. “Immoral” was not confined to sexual immorality. The University could not substitute the general concept of gross misconduct for the specific statutory wording.

3. Applying section 98(4) of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the Tribunal had to review the investigation, disciplinary process, findings and sanction against the standard of the reasonable employer. It had to consider whether dismissal was reasonable having regard to the University’s own statutory and contractual test. The Tribunal had not identified whether the disciplinary tribunal found that test satisfied, or whether that conclusion was reasonable.

4. The Tribunal’s findings that the investigator and advisers had acted honestly and without improper bias did not resolve the investigation issue. It had to determine whether the investigator had fully expressed his conclusions, why favourable conclusions were omitted, and whether dismissal was reasonable in light of those omissions. The relevant test was objective fairness.

5. The Tribunal had adequately considered the potentially career-ending consequences of dismissal. The Employment Appeal Tribunal could not substitute its own view because more than one outcome remained possible: Jafri v Lincoln College [2014] ICR 920. The third ground of appeal therefore failed.

6. As an additional observation, it was generally good practice to contact a student involved in an investigation to see whether she wished to contribute, although that point was not necessary to the appeal.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: allowed the appeal against the Employment Tribunal’s judgment dated 31 March 2015 and remitted the unfair-dismissal claim for a fresh hearing.
• Employment Tribunal: rejected the claim of unfair dismissal.