In Atkins v Coyle Personnel plc the employee was contacted during his paternity leave by a manager. There was a possible client booking and the manager did not want him to miss out on any commission. The employee had had little sleep and admonished the manager for contacting him, even though there had been an agreement that he would be contactable. During a subsequent telephone conversation the employee was dismissed. The manager was frustrated and annoyed by the employee’s attitude when he thought that he was doing him a favour.

The employee claimed in the employment tribunal that the dismissal was connected with the fact that he took paternity leave. Such a dismissal is automatically unfair and employees do not need to have a year’s service to bring a claim. However, the employment tribunal and EAT refused to allow his claim. The EAT held that there had to be a causal connection between the reason for the dismissal and the fact that the employee took paternity leave. Just because he was on paternity leave at the time was not enough to give him grounds for a claim that his dismissal was automatically unfair. The employee in this case was dismissed because the manager was frustrated and annoyed with him, not because he was on paternity leave.

Note that this case concerned only whether the dismissal was connected to paternity leave. A dismissal in similar circumstances could be unfair on different grounds, for example due to the fact that the statutory dismissal procedure was not followed.

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Read the full transcript of Atkins v Coyle Personnel plc (Microsoft Word format, 85.5K) on the EAT website.