Aquatronic Group Management Ltd v Mace

In deciding whether a conduct dismissal was fair, an Employment Tribunal must apply Employment Rights Act 1996 section 98(4) in accordance with equity and the substantial merits. The range of reasonable responses is not infinitely wide. A Tribunal may find dismissal unfair where the employer fails genuinely to consider powerful mitigation, long unblemished service, health evidence, remorse and corrective steps, or where the appeal is a sham.

An appellate court must read the Tribunal’s reasons as a whole. Imperfect passages do not justify intervention unless they reveal a material error of law. A contributory-fault deduction under section 123 remains a matter for the Tribunal’s broad, just-and-equitable discretion.

The claimant, an Engineering Director with 27 years’ service, was dismissed for gross misconduct after an aggressive and profane workplace outburst towards a Service Engineer. He accepted that he had overreacted, expressed remorse, and produced evidence of depression, anxiety and engagement with cognitive behavioural therapy.

The Employment Tribunal found the dismissal unfair and wrongful. It considered that the employer had failed to deal fairly with the claimant’s mitigation and service, had treated an earlier informal incident as a warning, and had conducted an appeal which was merely a rubber-stamping exercise. It made no deduction for contributory fault.

The employer appealed against the unfair-dismissal finding and the refusal to reduce compensation for contributory fault. The central issue was whether the Tribunal had substituted its own view for that of a reasonable employer, or otherwise erred in law.

1. Appeal dismissed. Although parts of the Employment Tribunal’s discussion of the seriousness of the February incident appeared to express its own view, rather than that of a reasonable employer, that did not disclose an error of law requiring intervention when the decision was read as a whole.

2. The Tribunal had correctly directed itself on the statutory test under Employment Rights Act 1996 section 98(4). It was entitled to conclude that dismissal fell outside the range of reasonable responses. The employer had not genuinely addressed the claimant’s 27 years of unblemished service, remorse, medical condition, therapeutic progress and insight into his conduct. It was also entitled to find that the dismissing manager had approached the matter with a closed mind and had failed to consider an outcome other than dismissal.

3. The Tribunal was further entitled to treat the procedural defects as material. These included the questionable suspension and investigation, the use of an earlier incident that had not been dealt with under a proper disciplinary procedure, and an appeal process which the Tribunal found to be a charade. Those findings independently supported the conclusion that the dismissal was unfair.

4. Newbound v Thames Water Utilities Ltd [2015] IRLR 734 confirmed that the statutory language, equity and substantial merits must be applied, and that the band of reasonable responses is not infinitely wide. Fuller v London Borough of Brent [2011] IRLR 414 required the appellate tribunal to avoid an over-fussy, passage-by-passage critique of a Tribunal judgment.

5. The Tribunal had applied the correct approach to contributory fault under section 123. It could find that the claimant’s minor misconduct had a causal connection with dismissal but had been blown out of proportion, and that no deduction was just and equitable. That evaluative decision was within its wide discretion and was not perverse.

• Employment Appeal Tribunal: the employer’s appeal against the findings of unfair dismissal and no contributory-fault deduction was dismissed.
• Employment Tribunal: at East London, Employment Judge Tobin found the claimant unfairly and wrongfully dismissed. Following reconsideration, compensation was awarded in the sum of £68,254.63.