I have been dismissed - Unfair dismissal

Has your employment been
terminated by your employer?
Do you feel that the
circumstanceswere unfair?
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0161 618 1032 or click here

Has your employment been terminated?

Do you have an unfair dismissal claim?

If you have been dismissed from your employment, you may be entitled to bring a claim of unfair dismissal in the Employment Tribunal – last year alone, 57,400 people issued a claim of unfair dismissal against their former employer for unfair dismissal, so fear not, you are not alone...

What counts as a dismissal?

You will have been dismissed by your employer if:

Your employer terminates your employment;
You resign from your employment in circumstances where your employer is in fundamental breach of contract – this is known as constructive dismissal;
Your employer fails to renew your fixed-term contract on the expiry of the fixed term.

Are there any other eligibility requirements?

In order to proceed with an unfair dismissal claim, you need to be able to show the following:-

You were an employee rather than an independent contractor or a self employed individual;
You must have been working continuously for your employer for at least one year, unless you can show that your employment terminated for an automatically unfair reason (such as a pregnancy related dismissal);
You must bring your claim within three months of the date of termination of your employment.

How will the Tribunal decide my case?

If you can show that you have been dismissed and that you are eligible to bring the case then your employer has an opportunity to defend the case. To successfully defend the case, your employer has to show that your dismissal was for a “potentially fair reason”. There are currently only six potentially fair reasons and they are:

Misconduct
Capability to carry out the job
Redundancy
That to continue to employ you would have been unlawful
Retirement
Some other substantial reason of a kind to justify dismissal

If the Tribunal find that the real reason for the dismissal was a reason not falling within the above (for example a personality clash, or simply that your face did not fit) then your claim succeeds. Usually however, an employer is successful at showing one of the above reasons. In those cases, the Tribunal move on to consider whether your employer acted reasonably in reaching a decision to dismiss you for that reason. Whether it was reasonable will depend on all the surrounding circumstances. For example, in a case of alleged misconduct, was there a reasonable investigation and did the employer follow its disciplinary procedure? Was a dismissal a reasonable response to the facts?

Other factors that may influence a Tribunal are the size of the employer (larger employers have to jump through more hoops generally), your length of service, and in alleged misconduct cases, whether you had any previous warnings. The degree of cooperation that you provided is also relevant – Tribunals like to see employees who cooperate for example in attending meetings. Be mindful of the emails and letters that you write at the time – these will likely be looked at carefully by the Tribunal if your case proceeds to a hearing.

Whilst we are on the subject of cooperation, it will almost always be a good idea to go through your employer’s appeal process (assuming you are offered a right of appeal against your dismissal) even if you feel that the reality is that there is no hope of the dismissal being overturned. Tribunals are not generally receptive to the statement in evidence that you had lost all trust in your employer and did not think it was worthwhile to appeal.

What remedy will be awarded to me if I won my unfair dismissal claim?

In most cases, where an employee has been held to have been unfairly dismissed, the only realistic remedy awarded will be compensation. There is a power to order that your ex employer reinstates you into the job that you have lost but this is rarely used. Compensation is split between a basic award (calculated in the same way as a statutory redundancy payment) and a compensatory award, which is designed to compensate you for the earnings that you have lost. There is a cap on the compensatory award, which changes slightly each year and which is in the region of £65,000.

Disclaimer – The contents of this page are provided for general guidance only and do not replace the need to obtain legal advice about any given situation.