The recent court martial (on the Daily Telegraph website) of the commander of a British nuclear submarine who crashed his vessel into a large rock provides a useful reminder that there are occasions when a single mistake can justify dismissal.
Commander Steve Drysdale is being disciplined for an incident in May 2008 where the nuclear submarine HMS Superb ran aground in the Red Sea after it struck a rock. Commander Drysdale and two of his officers have admitted that their mistake in misreading the depth of the obstruction as 732 metres when it was at 132 metres had caused the accident.
The classic case in this area is the old (but still good) case of Taylor v Alidair Ltd [1978] IRLR 82 CA [subscription required], where a pilot was dismissed after a badly executed landing (see also the subsequent decision in Inner London Education Authority v Lloyd [1981] IRLR 394 CA [subscription required], which explained some of the limits of the principles set out in Taylor v Alidair Ltd).
As long as a fair procedure is followed, a decision to summarily dismiss an employee for a single catastrophic mistake can be justified where:
- the inadequacy of an employee's performance is so extreme that no amount of training or time for improvement could possibly make a difference; or
- the consequences for an employer are so great that it cannot be expected to continue the employment relationship.
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Comments (1)
The basis of accident management is that an accident (outcome) is rarely the result of a single error.
Moreover, the critical enabling errors are often external to the people involved.
I'd be a lot more impressed if this was investigated like an air accident.
An organization prone to pointing fingers will just make the same 'mistake' (combination of mistakes) again.
Posted by Jo Jordan | March 17, 2010 8:31 AM
Posted on March 17, 2010 08:31