Discipline

New and updated

• Letter informing an employee that a period of sickness absence for which the employee has not submitted medical evidence is to be treated as unauthorised absence

  Type:

  Policies and documents

  A model letter to notify an employee who has failed to respond to previous requests to provide a doctor's statement of fitness for work for a period of sickness absence lasting more than seven days that the matter is now to be treated as unauthorised absence leading to disciplinary action.

• Refusal to allow employee to be accompanied by chosen companion at disciplinary investigation was breach of trust and confidence

  Date:

  24 August 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  The High Court has held that an employer breached its implied duty of trust and confidence towards an employee who was not allowed to be accompanied at a disciplinary investigation by his choice of companion.

• Dismissal of employee accused of putting image of witch on computer of colleague who "unfriended" her on Facebook

  Date:

  13 August 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that procedural defects in an employee's dismissal for allegedly bullying a colleague who "unfriended" her on Facebook could be cured during the appeal stage.

• Unfair dismissal: No entitlement to have disciplinary proceedings suspended while grievance considered

  Date:

  1 August 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  In Jinadu v Docklands Buses Ltd EAT/0434/14, the EAT held that an employee was not entitled to have her disciplinary proceedings suspended while the employer considered a grievance that she had raised about her treatment. However, the case was remitted because the tribunal had failed to make clear findings as to whether she was dismissed for gross misconduct or for poor performance.

• Unfair dismissal: Warning issued in bad faith cannot be relied on

  Date:

  1 August 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  In Way v Spectrum Property Care Ltd [2015] IRLR 657 CA, the Court of Appeal held that an employer cannot rely on a warning on an employee's file that was given in bad faith, alongside later misconduct, when deciding that there is sufficient reason to dismiss. To do so would be outside the range of reasonable responses, and not in accordance with equity and the substantial merits of the case.

• Unfair dismissal: Acas guidance on composition of an appeal panel must be considered in context

  Date:

  15 July 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  The Employment Appeal Tribunal (EAT) has held that a dismissal was fair despite flaws in the first stage of the disciplinary process and in the composition of an appeal panel.

• How many levels of appeal should there be under a disciplinary procedure?

  Type:

  FAQs

• What should an employer do if an employee does not agree the minutes or notes of a disciplinary or grievance meeting and asks for them to be amended?

  Type:

  FAQs

• Discipline: No contractual right to increase disciplinary sanction on appeal

  Date:

  1 June 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  In McMillan v Airedale NHS Foundation Trust [2014] IRLR 803 CA, the Court of Appeal held that the NHS had no contractual right to increase a disciplinary sanction on a doctor's internal appeal against that sanction.

• Unfair dismissal: Dismissal procedurally and substantively unfair where inexperienced chair dismissed for serious but not gross misconduct

  Date:

  1 June 2015

  Type:

  Law reports

  In Thomson v Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust EAT/0218/14, the EAT upheld an employment tribunal's ruling that a conduct dismissal was unfair because the chair of the disciplinary panel had no training or experience in the role, and he impermissibly dismissed for what amounted to serious but not gross misconduct. The employee had, however, failed to establish that there was any failure to make reasonable adjustments.