Employer wins landmark unfair dismissal case

Delay in dealing with any part of the statutory dismissal procedure does not render the dismissal automatically unfair, the Court of Appeal has decided.

In Selvarajan v Wilmot the court ruled that the sacking of three employees by Bolton GP Dr Selvarajan, on the grounds of misconduct, was fair.

Selvarajan fired the trio for allegedly making false overtime claims. They said their dismissal was automatically unfair because there had been a delay of several months in hearing the appeals against the decision to sack them.

Although the Employment Appeal Tribunal found that where there was non compliance with any step or general requirement of the statutory procedure this would render the procedure incomplete and thus dismissals automatically unfair, it remitted the matter to tribunal to establish whether the delay in hearing the appeal was reasonable. Selvarajan appealed to the Court of Appeal.

Joanne Martin, solicitor at Davies Arnold Cooper, who acted for Selvarajan, says: “This decision makes it clear that completion of the steps of a statutory dismissal procedure is wholly separate to compliance with the general requirements of the statutory procedures. Failure to comply with a general requirement of a procedure is not of itself a failure to complete it. For as long as the statutory procedures remain in place, all employers and practitioners should be aware of this decision.”