A consultant surgeon dismissed for gross professional and personal misconduct cannot bring a £3.8m claim against an NHS trust for breach of contract regarding the disciplinary hearing, the Supreme Court has ruled.
The justices held, by a majority, that it would be wrong for the courts to allow a claim to be pursued for breach of contract based on the manner of dismissal. Through the unfair dismissal regime, Parliament had already provided an avenue for employees to complain about their employer’s conduct, and such a claim would conflict with and undermine the unfair dismissal regime.
In Edwards v Chesterfield Royal Hospital NHS Foundation Trust; Botham v Ministry of Defence [2011] UKSC 58, Edwards, a trauma and orthopaedic surgeon, dropped unfair dismissal procedures and then issued breach-of-contract proceedings in the High Court.
Edwards’ terms and conditions of employment stated that, in matters of professional misconduct, he would appear before a panel that included a clinician of the same discipline as himself and a legally qualified chairperson. He alleged that, since the disciplinary panel which dealt with his misconduct case included neither of these, it was wrongly constituted, in breach of contract, and that, as a result, it made adverse findings against him which caused him reputational damage.
Rachael Heenan, a partner at DAC Beachcroft, the Trust’s solicitors, says: “The outcome is good news for any employer, regardless of their sector, especially those with contractual disciplinary procedures and high-earning employees whose losses would otherwise exceed the statutory cap for unfair dismissal.
“Had this appeal not been successful, employers would have been continually vulnerable to the possibility of employees trying to get around the compensation cap or time limit in unfair dismissal claims by claiming for a breach of procedure.”
In a claim for unfair dismissal in the employment tribunal, Edwards’ damages would have been limited to a maximum award of £12,000, plus a maximum compensatory award of £68,400.
