Disciplinary appeals

Case 11: The facts

After blows were exchanged in a changing room, footballer Dennis Wise was fined for alleged misconduct. His club then decided to take disciplinary action and he was dismissed.

Wise appealed to the Football Disciplinary Committee (FDC), which conducted a full re-hearing. Concluding that he was guilty of the misconduct, but that dismissal was not a reasonable response, the FDC re-imposed the fine.

The club then appealed to the Football League Appeals Committee (FLAC), which did not hear any evidence but simply reviewed the decision to dismiss Wise, and confirmed the decision to dismiss him.

The ruling

The club had not followed a fair procedure when it dismissed Wise. The EAT held that, in order to cure the initial procedural failings on appeal, the appeal hearing should have been a re-hearing of the evidence and not just a review of the decision. The FDC had conducted a re-hearing but the FLAC had not.

Because the FDC had not upheld Wise's dismissal, the FLAC's decision to uphold the dismissal could not be fair; it was not a decision that had been arrived at by re-hearing the evidence. As a result, Wise's dismissal was unfair.

Wise v Filbert Realisations UKEAT/0660/03